Towards Control of Steady State Plasma on Tore Supra

TL;DR

This paper discusses the upgrades to the Tore Supra tokamak's real-time control system to enable stable, long-duration plasma discharges by managing multiple plasma parameters and preventing overheating, advancing steady-state fusion research.

Contribution

The paper presents new control schemes and system enhancements for Tore Supra to achieve and maintain steady-state plasma conditions during extended discharges.

Findings

Achieved discharges up to 6 minutes 24 seconds.

Implemented real-time control of plasma equilibrium and density.

Prevented overheating of plasma facing components.

Abstract

The Tore Supra tokamak is the largest superconducting magnetic fusion facility, has been devoted to long-duration high-performance discharge research. With a steady-state magnetic field and water cooled plasma facing components, discharges up to 6 minutes 24 seconds duration with injected / extracted energy up to 1 GJ have been performed. The Tore Supra real time measurements and control (RTMC) system has been upgraded to address schemes dedicated to long pulse operation with simultaneous control of an increasing number of plasma parameters. This includes plasma equilibrium control with possible self calibration during the discharge, plasma density control with possible pellet injection, current profile control to avoid magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) instabilities and infrared monitoring of plasma facing components preventing overheating. Most of these improvements are relevant to the tokamaks operation in a fully steady state regime.