SMALL-BORE (1.8-MM), HIGH-FIRING-RATE (10-HZ) VERSION OF A REPEATING PNEUMATIC HYDROGEN PELLET INJECTOR

Repeating pneumatic pellet injectors developed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) were used for plasma fueling experiments on the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) and the Joint European Torus (JET). For plasma fueling on the DIII-D tokamak, a small-bore (1.8-mm) injector has been developed and tested in the laboratory at pellet rates of up to 10 Hz and speeds of ≤1 km/s (for pulse lengths of up to 15 s). This performance represents the smallest pellet size and highest repetition rate demonstrated with an ORNL repeating pneumatic pellet injector. The design has been incorporated in the three-barrel injector that was previously used on JET; the injection system, equipped with nominal pellet sizes of 1.8-, 2.7-, and 4.0-mm diameter, has been installed on DIII-D and will be used in future plasma fueling experiments. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.