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Plasma edge transport characteristics are known to be heavily influenced by the edge fluctuation induced turbulences. These characteristics play a critical role towards the confinement of plasma column in a Tokamak. The edge magnetic fluctuations and its subsequent effect on electrostatic fluctuations have been experimentally investigated for the first time at the edge of the SST-1 plasma column. This paper reports the correlations that exist and is experimentally been observed between the edge densities and floating potential fluctuations with the magnetic fluctuations. The edge density and floating potential fluctuations have been measured with the help of poloidally separated Langmuir probes, whereas the magnetic fluctuations have been measured with poloidally spaced Mirnov coils. Increase in magnetic fluctuations associated with enhanced MHD activities has been found to increase the floating potential and ion saturation current. These observations indicate electrostatic turbulence getting influenced with the MHD activities and reveal the edge anomalous particle transport during SST-1 tokamak discharge. Large-scale coherent structures have been observed in the floating potential fluctuations, indicating long-distance cross correlation in the poloidal directions. From bispectral analysis, a strong nonlinear coupling among the floating potential fluctuations is observed in the low-frequency range about 0–15 kHz.

Steady-state Superconducting Tokamak (SST-1) vacuum vessel (VV) adopts moderate baking at 110 ± 10 °C and the limiters baking at 250 ± 10 °C for ∼ 200 h followed by glow discharge cleaning in hydrogen (GDC-H) with 0.15 A/m2 current density towards its conditioning prior to plasma discharge experiment. The baking in SST-1 reduces the water (H2O) vapor by 95% and oxygen (O2) by 60% whereas the GDC reduces the water vapor by an additional 57% and oxygen by another 50% as measured with residual gas analyzer. The minimum breakdown voltage for H-GDC in SST-1 tokamak was experimentally observed to 300 V at 8 mbar cm. As a result of these adherences, SST-1 VV achieves an ultimate of 4.5 × 10−8 mbar with two turbo-molecular pumps with effective pumping speed of 3250 l/s. In the last campaign, SST-1 has achieved successful plasma breakdown, impurity burn through and a plasma current of ∼ 40 kA for 75 ms.

Vacuum system of steady-state superconducting tokamak (SST-1) is comprised of 23 m3 ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) chamber with baking channels embedded on the vacuum vessel (VV) being heated with a dedicated nitrogen gas baking facility, gas puffing system, wall conditioning system and 39 m3 high vacuum cryostat (CST) chamber housing the superconducting magnets, cold structures, 80-K thermal shields and associated auxiliary components. The pumping system for the SST-1 VV consists of two turbo-molecular pumps each of 5500 l/s (N2 gas) capacity providing a total effective pumping speed of 4675 l/s and the CST consists of three such pumps with a total effective pumping speed of 3250 l/s. To achieve UHV inside the VV, it was baked at 135 °C for a longer duration of 100 h, while four numbers of graphite based limiters were baked at 250 °C for 50 h. An ultimate pressure of 4.6 × 10-8 mbar was achieved inside VV while an ultimate vacuum achieved inside the CST was 1.1 × 10-5 mbar. The gas puffing system has performed satisfactorily during the plasma trials assisted with electron cyclotron resonance heating preionizations. This paper describes our overall experience during the entire campaign of successful operation of SST-1 during first plasma.

Steady-state Superconducting Tokamak (SST-1) was installed and it is commissioning for overall vacuum integrity, magnet systems functionality in terms of successful cool down to 4.5 K and charging up to 10 kA current was started from August 2012. Plasma operation of 100 kA current for more than 100 ms was also envisaged. It is comprised of vacuum vessel (VV) and cryostat (CST). Vacuum vessel, an ultra-high (UHV) vacuum chamber with net volume of 23 m 3 was maintained at the base pressure of 6.3 × 10 −7 mbar for plasma confinement. Cryostat, a high-vacuum (HV) chamber with empty volume 39 m 3 housing superconducting magnet system, bubble thermal shields and hydraulics for these circuits, maintained at 1.3 × 10 −5 mbar in order to provide suitable environment for these components. In order to achieve these ultimate vacuums, two numbers of turbo-molecular pumps (TMP) are installed in vacuum vessel while three numbers of turbo-molecular pumps are installed in cryostat. Initial pumping of both the chambers was carried out by using suitable Roots pumps. PXI based real time controlled system is used for remote operation of the complete pumping operation. In order to achieve UHV inside the vacuum vessel, it was baked at 150 °C for longer duration. Aluminum wire-seals were used for all non-circular demountable ports and a leak tightness −9 mbar l/s were achieved.

Vacuum chambers of Steady State Superconducting (SST-1) Tokamak comprises of the vacuum vessel and the cryostat. The plasma will be confined inside the vacuum vessel while the cryostat houses the superconducting magnet systems (TF and PF coils), LN 2 cooled thermal shields and hydraulics for these circuits. The vacuum vessel is an ultra-high (UHV) vacuum chamber while the cryostat is a high-vacuum (HV) chamber. In order to achieve UHV inside the vacuum vessel, it would be baked at 150 °C for longer duration. For this purpose, U-shaped baking channels are welded inside the vacuum vessel. The baking will be carried out by flowing hot nitrogen gas through these channels at 250 °C at 4.5 bar gauge pressure. During plasma operation, the pressure inside the vacuum vessel will be raised between 1.0 × 10 −4 mbar and 1.0 × 10 −5 mbar using piezoelectric valves and control system. An ultimate pressure of 4.78 × 10 −6 mbar is achieved inside the vacuum vessel after 100 h of pumping. The limitation is due to the development of few leaks of the order of 10 −5 mbar l/s at the critical locations of the vacuum vessel during baking which was confirmed with the presence of nitrogen gas and oxygen gas with the ratio of ∼3.81:1 indicating air leak. Similarly an ultimate vacuum of 2.24 × 10 −5 mbar is achieved inside the cryostat. Baking of the vacuum vessel up to 110 °C with ±10 °C deviation was achieved with a net mass flow rate of 0.8 kg/s at 1.5 bar gauge inlet pressure and supply temperature of 230 °C at the heater end. Also during gas feed system installation, the pressure inside the VV was raised from 3.01 × 10 −5 mbar to 1.72 × 10 −4 mbar by triggering a pulse of lower amplitude of 25 voltage direct current (VDC) for 100 s to piezoelectric valve. This paper describes in detail the design and implementation of the various vacuum subsystems including relevant experimental results.

Glow discharge conditioning (GDC) has long been accepted as one of the basic wall conditioning techniques for achieving ultrahigh vacuum in an unbaked chamber. As a part of this fundamental experimental study, a test chamber has been fabricated from stainless steel 304 L with its inner surface electropolished on which a detailed investigation has been carried out. Both helium and hydrogen gases have been employed as discharge cleaning medium. The discharge cleaning was carried out at 0.1 A /m 2 current density with working pressure maintained at 1.0 × 10 -2 mbar. It was experimentally observed that the pump-down time to attain the base pressure ~10 -8 mbar was reduced by 62% compared to the unbaked chamber being pumped to this ultimate vacuum. The results were similar irrespective of whether the discharge cleaning medium is either hydrogen or helium. It was also experimentally established that a better ultimate vacuum could be achieved as compared to theoretically calculated ultimate vacuum with the help of discharge cleaning.

The radial and poloidal particle fluxes occurring at the plasma edge are essential towards understanding the plasma confinement in the tokamak device. In tokamaks, the edge transport barriers play a critical role in the transitions from low confinement (L-mode) to high confinement (H-mode). Recently, the edge plasma profiles have been studied for steady-state superconducting tokamak-1 (SST-1) with the help of an array of Langmuir probes. The floating potential and ion saturation current fluctuations have been measured at different radial and poloidal distance at the edge of SST-1. Increases in magnetic fluctuations associated with enhanced magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) activities have been found to increase the radial particle flux drastically. It indicates that the MHD activity leads to anomalous particle transport during the tokamak discharge at SST-1. It is found that the average poloidal velocity decreases from ∼4 km/s to ∼3.7 km/s whereas the average radial velocity decreases from ∼7.2 km/s to 4.7 km/s....

Helium leak testing is the most versatile form of weld qualification test for any vacuum application. Almost every ultra-high vacuum (UHV) system utilizes this technique for insuring leak tightness for the weld joints as well as demountable joints. During UHV system under operational condition with many other integrated components, in-situ developed leaks identification becomes one of the prime aspect for maintaining the health of such system and for continuing the experiments onwards. Since online utilization of leak detector (LD) has many practical limitations, residual gas analyser (RGA) can be used as a potential instrument for online leak detection. For this purpose, a co-relation for a given leak rate between Leak Detector and RGA is experimentally established. This paper describes the experimental aspect and the relationship between leak detector and RGA.

SST-1 tokamak is a long pulse tokamak designed for the plasma operation up to 1000 sec duration. Gas feed system and gas exhaust management will play a very crucial role during plasma discharge. During the different type of operations of tokamak like wall conditioning, diverter operation and neutral beam injection, a large amount of gas will be fed into the vacuum chamber at different locations. Also during plasma operations, the gas will be fed both in continues and pulse mode. Gas feed will be carried out mainly using piezo-electric valves controlled by PXI based data acquisition and control system. Such operations will lead to a huge amount gas exhaust by the main system which requires good exhaust facility to searches, great care should be taken in constructing both. Also initial pumping of cryostat and vacuum vessel of SST-1 will release a large amount of gas. Exhausted gases from SST -1 will be Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Mixture gases or some toxic gases. Dedicated exhaust system controlling the different gases are installed. Special treatment of hazardous/explosive gases is done before releasing to the atmosphere. This paper describes design and implementations of the complete gas feed and exhaust system of SST-1.

Vacuum system of steady-state Superconducting Tokamak (SST-1) has a very essential role during SST-1 plasma operation. For this purpose, its data acquisition and control system should be reliable and accurate. The PXI based faster real time data acquisition and control system were used for performing various operations like online data measurements, control, display, status indication in form of graphical visualization and storing the data for future analysis. We developed such PXI based vacuum control and implemented to our ongoing experimental set-up. This paper will describe the detailed information and guidance on PXI based platform for data acquisition and control used during the campaign.

The Steady-state Superconducting Tokamak (SST-1) is an indigenously built medium sized fusion device at IPR designed for plasma duration of 1000 seconds. It consists of two large vacuum chambers – Vacuum Vessel (16 m3) and Cryostat (39 m3) which will be pumped to UHV and HV pressures respectively using a set of turbo molecular pumps, Cryo-pumps and Roots pumps. The total as well as the partial pressure measurement in these chambers will be carried out using a set of Pirani gauges, Bayard Alpert type gauges, Capacitance manometers and Residual Gas Analyzers (RGA). A reliable and accurate pressure measurement is essential for successful operation of SST-1 machine. For this purpose a gauge calibration system is set up in SST-1 Vacuum laboratory based on Spinning Rotor Gauge which can measure absolute pressure in the range 1.0 mbar to 1.0 × 10−7 mbar. This system is designed to calibrate up to five gauges simultaneously for different gases in different operating pressure ranges of the gauges. This paper discusses the experimental set-up and the procedure adopted for the calibration of such vacuum gauges.