Improvement of initial vacuum condition along 2008–2010 KSTAR campaign by vessel baking

Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) is upgraded for its KSTAR 3rd campaign for new target mission to produce the D-shaped plasma with a target plasma current of 500 kA and/or pulse length of 5 s. New Plasma Facing Components (PFCs) are installed which leads to the increase of the surface area of the vessel by a factor of about 5. The vacuum conditioning such as the vessel baking has been performed in order to remove various kinds of impurities including H 2O, carbon and oxygen for the plasma. The total outgassing rate in the KSTAR 1st campaign was measured as 1.5 × 10 −4 mbar ℓ s −1 which is increased by a factor of 3 (6.49 × 10 −4 mbar ℓ s −1) in the KSTAR 3rd campaign. Nevertheless, the outgassing rates per unit area have been decreased from 9.31 × 10 −5 mbar ℓ m −2 s −1 to 1.22 × 10 −5 mbar ℓ m −2 s −1 due to the upgrade of baking system and series of baking operation.