Development of the plasma generator for a long pulse 10×40 neutral beam

Users of fusion devices have identified heating requirements for positive ion based neutral beams to include energies of 80 or 120 kV with pulse length up to 30 s. Additional requirements are low beam divergence (0.3°×1.0°; 1/e half angles), low impurity (less than 1%), high species (over 80% atomic), and cathode lifetime exceeding 5 h of beam operation. Accelerator design remains as an engineering problem, whereas most of the performance goals have required development of the plasma generator. Problems of concern which relate to the performance goals are the heat dissipation, magnetic field configuration, and cathode placement. The plasma generator was tested on TS IIA (the plasma generator testing facility) which does not have beam extraction capability but is used to evaluate efficiency, operating conditions, arc notching characteristics, species, plasma uniformity, and cathode conditioning. The source, consisting of the plasma generator mounted on the long pulse accelerator was mounted on NBETF (Neutral Beam Engineering Test Facility) for beam testing. During beam operation the back‐streaming electrons add power to the source and affect the arc operation. Source durability and stability were studied at 80 kV and 40 A of accelerator current (deuterium). The arc efficiency was higher than the value used for the design. Power loading from back‐streaming electrons was much less than the design level. With feedback control, plasma density and accel current were constant to ±2% during 30‐s shots. The beam atomic fraction of 84%–88% (deuterium) was slightly higher than measured on TS IIA. Cathode durability was tested by operating over 500, 30‐s full shots at 80 kV and 40 A of deuterium. Arc conditioning was found to be an important phase to avoid filament damage.