Tungsten dust injection into the STOR-M tokamak

Abstract

Controlled tungsten (W) dust injection experiments have been performed in the STOR-M tokamak. Tokamak discharges were initiated after a known delay time with respect to the injection of W micro-spheres. The plasma parameters were detrimentally affected, proportional to an increased amount of dust within the plasma volume. High speed camera imaging of the injected dust revealed that the dust particles experience a strong force in the counter-plasma current direction. This force decreased for high dust number density due to the associated decline of plasma parameters.

Keywords:

• Tokamak
• tungsten dust
• particle tracking velocimetry
• fast camera imaging

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Notes on contributors

N. Nelson

Mr. N. Nelson is a PhD student at the University of Saskatchewan since January 2021. He obtained his BSc in Engineering in 2015 and MSc in 2020 from the University of Saskatchewan. He has received a Mitacs Globalink Research Award and will work at Aix-Marseille and CEA Cadarache in 2022 for six months. Mr. Nathan Nelson is an experimental plasma physicist. His current research interests are tokamak dust studies, plasma wall interactions and plasma facing component analysis.

R. Davies

Mr. R. Davies is a BSc student at McGill University, Montreal since September 2021. He received an NSERC USRA to work at the University of Saskatchewan for four months in the summer of 2023. His research interests are in experimental plasma physics, particularly in tokamak plasmas and dust transport.

L. Couëdel

Dr. L. Couëdel is a professor at the University of Saskatchewan (USask), Saskatoon since March 2018. He obtained his PhD from the University of Sydney, Australia in 2008. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for extraterrestrial Physics in the group of Professor Gregor Morfill (2009-2011). Prior to joining the USask, Dr. Couedel was a CNRS researcher in the PIIM laboratory at Aix-Marseille University (2011-2018). Dr. Couedel is an experimental plasma physicist. His current research interests are complex (dusty) plasmas (especially nanoparticle growth in low temperature plasmas (magnetized and unmagnetized), dust in tokamaks and instabilities in complex plasma crystals) and low temperature plasma diagnostics (especially sheath diagnostics).

C. Xiao

Dr. C. Xiao received his BSc (1982) and MSc (1984) degrees from the University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China and his PhD (Dr.rer.nat., 1990) degree from the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. He is a professor in the Department of Physics and Engineering Physics, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. His current research interests include the physics, engineering, and application aspects related to plasma diagnostics and plasma devices such as tokamak, reversed field pinch, compact torus injector, and dense plasma focus. He is responsible for operation of and research on the STOR-M tokamak and the University of Saskatchewan Compact Torus Injector.