Physics design, construction and commissioning of the ICRH system for the stellarator Wendelstein 7-X

• Published in: Fusion engineering and design 2023-07, Vol.192, p.113627, Article 113627
• Main Authors: Ongena, J., Castano-Bardawil, D., Crombé, K., Kazakov, Y.O., Schweer, B., Stepanov, I., Van Schoor, M., Vervier, M., Krämer-Flecken, A., Neubauer, O., Nicolai, D., Satheeswaran, G., Offermanns, G., Hollfeld, K.P., Benndorf, A., Dinklage, A., Hartmann, D., Kallmeyer, J.P., Wolf, R.C., TEC
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Confinement; Heating; ICRH; Radiofrequency; Stellarator
• ISSN: 0920-3796; 1873-7196
• DOI: 10.1016/j.fusengdes.2023.113627

•An ICRH antenna has been built for the largest stellarator in the world, Wendelstein 7-X. This is also the first time that an ICRH antenna is constructed for such a stellarator.•The antenna is installed in Wendelstein 7-X and is ready for operations.•Main aims are: heating of stellarator plasmas, plasma startup (especially at low magnetic field, where ECRH cannot be used), fast particle generation to test the confinement properties of the optimized magnetic configuration of Wendelstein 7-X and wall conditioning. The ICRH antenna for the stellarator Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) aims at delivering RF power levels up to about 1.5 MW in the frequency range 25–38 MHz with pulse lengths up to 10 s. The antenna was constructed and tested in the institute IEK-4 of the Research Centre Jülich, and subsequently installed at W7-X. The paper will review the physics design, the construction and installation in W7-X, and the commissioning plans for the ICRH system in the coming months. [Display omitted]