A new pellet injector for steady state fuelling in Tore Supra

A new deuterium pellet injector able to control the plasma density during the very long discharges allowed by the new Tore Supra configuration is in preparation. It will have the capability to inject continuously pellets of adjustable size (2-6 x 10(20) atoms) at frequency higher than 10 Hz, velocity between 100 and 900 m/s with a very high reliability. An optimised fast valve releasing a small amount of propellant gas per pellet is used for pneumatic acceleration. This gas can be managed with a reasonably sized pumping line. Guide tubes will be installed to convey the pellets toward the plasma allowing injection either from the low field side (LFS), or vertically or from the high field side (HFS) of the torus. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.