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Playing the “bad guy” to enhance next-generation safety
Sometimes, cops and robbers is more than just a kid’s game. At the Department of Energy’s national laboratories, researchers are channeling their inner saboteurs to discover vulnerabilities in next-generation nuclear reactors, making sure that they’re as safe as possible before they’re even constructed.
M. Kwon et al.
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 1 | January 2005 | Pages 17-22
Technical Paper | Open Magnetic Systems for Plasma Confinement | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-A602
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The HANBIT device is a simple mirror-type device of which the length, radius, and magnetic field are about 5 m, 0.18 m, and 0.1-0.3 T, respectively, in the central cell. In HANBIT, two antenna systems are used for the plasma production, heating, and MHD stabilization; one is the slot antenna located near the center region with the maximum power of 500 kW and the typical frequency of 3.5 MHz, and the other DHT antenna located near the mirror throat with the maximum power of 100 kW and the frequency of 3.75 MHz. Recent experimental studies in HANBIT indicate that the slot antenna system can produce stable, high-density plasmas in apparently two different regimes; one is the fast wave regime with the ratio w/Wci~2 and the other is the slow wave regime with w<Wci, where w and Wci are the RF and ion cyclotron resonance frequencies, respectively. The possible stabilization mechanism appears to be the ponderomotive force by the fast wave in the regime of w/Wci~2, while the RF side-band coupling force by the slow wave in the regime of w<Wci. A clear excitation of the flute-type, interchange modes with the axial mode number n=0 is observed when the RF power is not enough for the stabilization, particularly, in the slow wave regime. Here, we report the results of these experimental and theoretical studies on the RF heating and stabilization processes by the slot antenna in HANBIT. In addition, we introduce briefly the results of the other on-going research works in HANBIT, which include the beach-wave ion heating experiment using DHT antenna, the pre-ionization experiment using the thermal electron cathode or ECH, and the analysis of plasma-wall interaction and neutral transport.