Structural design and manufacturing of TPE-RX vacuum vessel

TPE-RX is a newly constructed, large-sized reversed field pinch (RFP) machi ne installed at the Electrotechnical Laboratory of the Ministry of Internat ional Trade and Industry in Japan. This is the third largest RFP in the wor ld. Major and minor radii of the plasma are 1.72 and 0.45 m, respectively. TPE-RX aims to optimize plasma confinement up to 1 MA. RFP plasma configura tion was successfully obtained in March 1998. This paper reports the struct ural design and manufacturing of the vacuum vessel of TPE-RX. The supportin g system on the bellows sections of the vessel was designed based on a deta iled finite element method. The integrity of the vacuum vessel against a pl asma disruption has been confirmed using dynamic inelastic analyses. (C) 19 99 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.