Characterizations and first plasma operation of the WEST load-resilient actively cooled ICRF launchers

W. Helou (1) , F. Durodié (2) , Julien Hillairet (1) , E. Lerche (2) , G. Lombard (1) , D. Milanesio (3) , P. Mollard (1) , J.-M Bernard (1) , N. Charabot (1) , F. Clairet (1) , L Colas (1) , Y. Moudden (1) , B. Santraine (1) , Y. Song (4) , G. Urbanczyk (1) , R. Volpe (1) , Y. Wang (4) , Q. Yang (4) , V. Bobkov (5) , West Team

1 IRFM - Institut de Recherche sur la Fusion par confinement Magnétique
2 LPP - Laboratory for Plasma Physics
3 Polito - Politecnico di Torino = Polytechnic of Turin
4 ASIPP - Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
5 IPP - Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik [Garching]

The paper discusses the characterization of the three high power steady-state and load-resilient ICRF launchers of WEST before their installation in the tokamak. These launchers have been characterized and validated in low-power experiments (milliwatt range) as well as in experiments at the nominal RF voltages and currents in the TITAN vacuum chamber ($\sim$30 kV and 915 A peak). The successful commissioning of two of the launchers during the WEST C3 campaign at $\sim$1 MW power level is illustrated. Manual and real-time controlled impedance-matching of the launchers are discussed, as well as the validation of their load-resilience. Furthermore, several redundant and complementary protection systems have been validated and are reviewed in the paper.

Domains: Plasmas; Electromagnetism; Plasma Physics [physics.plasm-ph]

W. Helou, F. Durodié, Julien Hillairet, E. Lerche, G. Lombard, et al.. Characterizations and first plasma operation of the WEST load-resilient actively cooled ICRF launchers. 23rd Topical Conference on Radiofrequency Power in Plasmas (RFPPC 2019), May 2019, Hefei, China. ⟨cea-02470093⟩