Design and operation of a load-tolerant ICRH system in Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak

Abstract

Ion Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ICRH) has been a dependable tool for sturdy plasma heating with high RF power of several megawatts. However, a sudden increase in the reflected power during ICRH heating experiments is a problem that should be solved for future fusion experimental devices. To solve this issue, a load tolerant matching network has been designed for the ICRH system in EAST. The matching network includes a 3-stub tuner impedance matching system with conjugate-T structure, 30 Ω to 50 Ω transmission line and center grounded antenna strap. By maintaining a low reflection ratio in the network for a wide range of resistance, this matching network can allow sturdy high-power operations without fast impedance matching in EAST. In our matching network, the two arms of a conjugate-T are designed to have a $\lambda/2$ length difference which could mitigate current imbalance and antenna poloidal phasing outside of the control problem. The T-point corresponds to the maximum point of the standing wave voltage, which could greatly improve the input impedance of the antenna.

Keywords

• load-tolerant
• EAST
• ICRH system
• plasma heating