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The Doppler reflectometer (DR), a powerful diagnostic for the plasma perpendicular velocity ($u_\perp$) and turbulence measurement has been widely used in various fusion devices. Many efforts have been put into extracting the Doppler shift from the DR signal. There are several commonly used methods for Doppler shift extraction, such as the phase derivative, the center of gravity (COG), and symmetric fitting (SFIT). However, the strong zero-order reflection component around $0 kHz$ may interfere with the calculation of the Doppler shift. To avoid the influence of the zero-frequency peak, the asymmetric fitting (AFIT) method was designed to calculate the Doppler shift. Nevertheless, the AFIT method may lead to an unacceptable error when the Doppler shift is relatively small compared to the half width at half maximum (HWHM). Therefore, an optimized method, which can remove the zero-frequency peak and fit the remaining Doppler peak with a Gaussian function, is devised to extract the Doppler shift. This method can still work reliably whether the HWHM is larger than the Doppler shift or not.

A feedback control system has been designed for Keda Torus eXperiment (KTX) to achieve the following goals: 1) 3-D plasma stability control and 2) improvement of plasma discharge quality. The real-time electronics system which is the key unit of this feedback control system helps to resolve the lack of high-speed transmission and real-time processing capability of the previous data acquisition (DAQ) system. The electronics system is implemented in PXI Express using a modular, distributed architecture. Field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is the core component of the electronics system. This article describes in detail the reasons for the choice in the hardware components. Optical communication has been evaluated for real-time communication by using the Aurora protocol. Measurements have been executed on a prototype system. Results from several tests comparing the performance of different solutions are also provided. 2-D spatial Fourier analysis based on FPGA is first used on the reversed field pinch (RFP) fusion device. Results indicate that the system can control the whole process and calculation in low latency.

In this article, partial and full collapses of sawtooth activity are investigated with the high-resolution two-dimensional electron cyclotron emission (ECE) Imaging diagnostic in EAST. The partial ...

A novel series of hybrids designed on the basis of aurantiamide acetate and isopropylated genipin were synthesized and biologically evaluated as anti-inflammatory agents. Among them, compound 7o exhibited the best inhibitory activity against TNF-α secretion (IC50 = 16.90 μM), and was selected for further in vitro and in vivo functional study. The results demonstrated that 7o was capable of suppressing the expression of LPS-induced iNOS and COX-2, as well as reducing the production of NO at the concentration of 5 μM, which may be resulted from its regulation of NF-κB signaling and MAPK signaling. Moreover, compound 7o exhibited favourable in vivo anti-inflammatory activity with an inhibition rate of 53.32% against xylene-induced ear swelling in mice at the dose of 5 mg/kg.

A two-color homodyne Mach–Zehnder (M–Z) optical fiber interferometer with wavelengths of 1.55 and 1.31 µm was developed for long-time measurement of line-integrated plasma electron density. A novel phase difference demodulation algorithm based on a single 3 × 3 optical coupler was implemented in a two-color optical fiber interferometer scheme for the first time. Our laboratory tests showed that this new optical fiber interferometer could determine the phase shift due to the low-frequency ambient vibration and could maintain high phase resolution measurement. The resolution of the new interferometer was less than 0.04 rad in 1000 s, corresponding to a line-averaged electron density of less than 1.0 × 1019 m−2. Actual plasma discharge experiments performed on KTX-CTI, which is a new compact torus injector (CTI) constructed at the Keda Torus eXperiment (KTX), showed that this interferometer has excellent several-second stability.

The New Delhi β-Lactamase 1 (NDM-1), one of the most prevalent types of metallo-β-lactamases, has attracted extensive attention since its discovery. Extensive efforts have been made to develop inhibitor of NDM-1, however, no inhibitor is available clinically so far. It is reported that Benzo[d][1,2]selenazol-3(2H)-one derivatives as covalent NDM-1 inhibitors can restore the efficacy of meropenem against NDM-1producing strains. In this study, 38 novel benzo or pyrido[d][1,2]selenazol-3(2H)-one derivatives were designed based on NDM-1 protein structure and structure-activity relationships study. Representative compound 15l exhibits significant synergistic antibacterial activity with meropenem against NDM-1 producing carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) isolates, especially clinical CRE isolates (FIC indices ranging from 0.0625 to 0.25). ESI-MS analysis demonstrats that 15l covalently binds to NDM-1 enzyme, and the IC

A homodyne Mach–Zehnder (M-Z) optical fiber interferometer (OFI) based on the optical coupler demodulation with 1.55 μm wavelength is firstly developed for high plasma density measurement on the theta pinch (IMP-θ) plasmas in the Institute of Modern Physics for the research on magnetic-inertial fusion. The evolutions of center line-averaged electron density in the theta pinch discharges are measured by the interferometer. The OFI is full-fiber structure and the line-average electron number density resolution is 10 18 m -2 . The minimum time resolution of OFI is 1ns, depended on the bandwidth of terminal InGaAs detectors. Finally, the dynamics of theta pinch plasmas are reported, which are analyzed from the density waveforms under different gas pressures and charging voltages of capacitor banks. It shows the OFI is a highly reliable and flexible routine high plasma density diagnostic tool for theta pinch plasmas.

Twenty novel talmapimod analogues were designed, synthesised and evaluated for the in vivo anti-inflammatory activities. Among them, compound 6n, the most potent one, was selected for exploring the mechanisms underlying its anti-inflammatory efficacy. In RAW264.7 cells, it effectively suppressed lipopolysaccharides-induced (LPS-induced) expressions of iNOS and COX-2. As illustrated by the western blot analysis, 6n downregulated both the NF-κB signalling and p38 MAPK phosphorylation. Further enzymatic assay identified 6n as a potent inhibitor against both p38α MAPK (IC50=1.95 µM) and COX-2 (IC50=0.036 µM). By virtue of the concomitant inhibition of p38α MAPK, its upstream effector, and COX-2, along with its capability to downregulate NF-κB and MAPK-signalling pathways, 6n, a polypharmacological anti-inflammatory agent, deserves further development as a novel anti-inflammatory drug.

Due to the discrete nature of the saddle coils for the active feedback control of the plasma instabilities, the emergence of the sideband modes is inevitable. In the Keda Torus eXperiment (KTX), the edge Mirnov coils are unevenly distributed on the inner surface of the vacuum vessel to suppress the sideband modes. These arrays of the Mirnov coils are used for the feedback control system of KTX. They are also used for the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) mode identification, which is a fundamental and significant method to distinguish and describe the plasma instabilities. A set of suitable MHD mode analysis methods has been utilized to complete the mode detection, including the spatial discrete Fourier transform (SDFT) method, the singular value decomposition (SVD) method and the Lomb periodogram method. These methods can obtain comprehensive mode information of the plasma instabilities and their results can be used as the feedback of the feedback control system. These methods have been successfully applied to detect and characterize an impulsive mode of ( $m = 1$ , $n = 0$ ) and rotating modes of ( $m = 2$ , 3, 4, $n = 1$ ) in the tokamak plasma of KTX, while the matrix decomposition technique is not applicable for KTX.

Electron density fluctuation has been measured based on the collect forward scattering method using a single-chord microwave interferometer system on the Keda Torus eXperiment (KTX) reversed field pinch. The interferometer system is a heterodyne one with two terahertz solid-state sources with frequency around 650 GHz, and the transmitted beam and forward scattering beam are received simultaneously by a Schottky planar diode mixer with sensitivity about 500 mV/mW. Constrained by the beamwidth and geometry limitation, the measurable wave vector range is $k_{w}\le 5 {\mathrm {cm}}^{-1}$ with a resolution $\Delta k\approx 2.07\,{\mathrm {cm}}^{-1}$ . MHD activities are detected via this forward scattering technique. The results are consistent with other diagnostics, such as the chord averaged electron density, the edge magnetic probe, and high-speed charge-coupled device (CCD) camera.

An analytic derivation of the relevant dispersion relation for vertical displacements in shaped tokamak plasmas is presented, valid for arbitrary values of the ellipticity parameter. The theory is developed within the framework of the reduced ideal-MHD model. A nearby, perfectly conducting wall can provide passive feedback stabilization of vertical displacements on the ideal-MHD timescale. The mechanism for passive stabilization relies on image currents induced on the metallic wall. However, if the plasma extends to the magnetic separatrix, where magnetic X-points are located, as in the case of a divertor tokamak configuration, perturbed axisymmetric currents carried by the plasma in the vicinity of the X-points are triggered. It is shown that these X-point currents can provide passive feedback stabilization, even in the absence of a nearby wall. X-point currents are excited due to the resonant nature of magnetic X-points with respect to toroidal axisymmetric perturbations. An intermediate case, where the plasma boundary is located just inside the magnetic separatrix, is also analyzed, providing additional insight into the stabilization mechanism.

A dynamo is necessary for reversed field pinch (RFP) configuration sustainment in a continuous way or oscillation cycles by self-organization. A dynamo velocity field from electrostatic drift is studied in three-dimensional (3D) equilibrium for Keda Torus eXperiment RFP plasmas in quasi-multi-helical (QMH) and quasi-single-helical (QSH) states. The 3D equilibrium reconstruction is computed by VMEC code. It is found that the electrostatic potential provides helical modulation of plasma flow in QSH states. The electrostatic potential in QMH states is processed as a superposition of limited helical harmonics, and it shows an axisymmetric pattern. Non-axisymmetric components are negligible in QMH states because of flux surface averaging of the electrostatic field and corresponding electrostatic drift flow. The electrostatic drift velocity is comparable to the total plasma drift in QSH states; this implies that the electrostatic drift may play an important role in sustaining the helical configuration in RFP plasma.

The flux of magnetic helicity characterizes how the topology of a magnetic field changes and helicity and its transport play essential roles in plasma equilibrium and instabilities in the reversed-field pinch (RFP) device configuration. Used to suppress magnetohydrodynamic instabilities effectively, the stabilizing conducting shell located at the boundary of an RFP device is always characterized by an eddy-current distribution that evolves rapidly with time. After measuring and analyzing the eddy currents on this stabilizing shell during tokamak discharges in the Keda Torus eXperiment device, the distributions of multiple physical quantities on the shell are obtained, including the magnetic fields, eddy currents, and electric fields. An experimental technique for measuring helicity flux density is demonstrated, combined with eddy-current diagnosis and these physical vectors on the boundary. How the magnetic and current helicity flux densities evolve is given by a feasible mathematical analysis, and data suggest that the plasma mediates both the generation and transport of magnetic helicity during the discharge. The experimental results of the distribution of the magnetic helicity flux densities (MHFDs) due to the instability on the boundary are given, and the average of these MHFDs over the whole boundary surface is far less than the maximum value of the MHFDs. In addition, the results of current helicity flux densities on the boundary are also presented.

Groove plate with triangle structure has been designed and fabricated to improve the microwave transmittance in W band. The parameters of the triangle structure has been optimized via the Effective Medium Theory (EMT) and FDTD program. The antireflection surface in W band has been verified in lab, the experimental results are qualitatively consistent with the theoretical results.

An optical fiber Mach-Zehnder interferometer at a wavelength of 1.55 µm has been developed for measurements of high electron density on compact torus (CT) plasmas with a high time resolution of 0.1 µs and high phase resolution of 6.4 × 10-4 rad. To improve density measurement accuracy, the phase noise of the interferometer has been investigated in detail and optimized. In the bench test, the interferometer was calibrated using a piezoelectric ceramic actuator with known stroke. Initial results on CT plasma show that the optical fiber interferometer provides reliable density measurements at two spatial locations and the bulk velocity of plasma can be determined by the method of time of flight.

A compact torus injection system, KTX-CTI, has been developed for the planned injection experiments on the Keda Torus eXperiment (KTX) reversed field pinch (RFP) device to investigate the physics and engineering issues associated with interaction between a compact torus (CT) and RFP. The key interests include fueling directly into the reactor center, confinement improvement, and the injection of momentum and helicity into the RFP discharges. The CT velocity and mass have been measured using a multichannel optical fiber interferometer, and for the first time the time evolution of the CT density profile during CT propagation is obtained. The effects of discharge parameters on the number of injected particles, CT velocity and CT density have been characterized: the maximum hydrogen CT plasma mass, m CT , is 50 μg, corresponding to 30% of the mass in a typical KTX plasma; the CT velocity exceeds 120 km s−1. It is observed for the first time that multiple CTs can be produced and emitted during a very short period (μs) in one discharge, which is significant for the future study of repetitive CT injection, even with an ultra-high frequency.

The conceptual design of a heavy ion beam probe (HIBP) for HL-2M tokamak has been proposed to measure the plasma potential, electron density and their fluctuations to contribute to the understanding of advanced confinement modes and transport. Beam trajectory calculations are performed under 3D magnetic field and engineering conditions of the facility. By choosing the positions and angles of both primary and secondary beamlines, a wide region of observation area ( 0.1 r / a 0.9 ) is achieved with 2 MeV Tl + beam injection. The active trajectory control technique is used to obtain the poloidal sweep angle between − 10 ∘ and 10 ∘ . Then, the applied voltages of sweep plates are evaluated to be up to 25 kV. By integrating ionization and attenuation along beam paths, the detected signal level distribution in the plasma density condition n 0 = 5 × 10 19 m − 3 is higher than 100 nA with 100 μ A injection beam intensity in most of the plasma region, which ensures an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio for measurements.

Electron cyclotron emission imaging (ECEI), as an advanced diagnostic, provides two-dimensional (2D) images of electron temperature fluctuation in the core plasma region. The ECEI system on Experim...

An equilibrium field (EQ) power supply (PS) circuit using a feedback H-bridge pulse-width-modulation controller has been developed to control the plasma horizontal position and to satisfy the requi...

We report about the soft X-ray (SXR) tomography system which is being developed on Keda Torus eXperiment (KTX). The tomographic system aims at studying three dimensional effects in reversed field pinch with high plasma current, particularly in quasi-single-helicity state (QSH). The view distribution of the probes has been carefully designed to reflect the experimental constraints. Bayesian experimental design (BED) is used to optimize the signal camera location and camera opening angle, aiming at maximizing the gain information in future QSH states. The BED approach allows us to quantitatively evaluate the performance of the design, and to estimate the design robustness. The physical image of the plasma is tomographically reconstructed using Cormack approach and the reconstructed emissivity image may be compared to the emissivity model using the residual error χ. The camera location, camera opening angle, and sightline density are finally decided by quantitatively comparing diverse designs in order to achieve the best reconstruction.

Through a systematically developed theory, we demonstrate that the motion of Instanton identified in Zhang et al (2017 Phys. Plasmas 24 122304) is highly correlated to the intermittent excitation and propagation of geodesic acoustic mode (GAM) that is observed in tokamaks. While many numerical simulations have observed the phenomena, it is the first theory that reveals the physical mechanism behind GAM intermittent excitation and propagation. The preceding work is based on the micro-turbulence associated with toroidal ion temperature gradient mode, and slab-based phenomenological model of zonal flow. When full toroidal effect is introduced into the system, two branches of zonal flow emerge: the torus-modified low frequency zonal flow (TLFZF), and GAM, necessitating a unified exploration of GAM and TLFZF. Indeed, we observe that the transition from the Caviton to Instanton is triggered by a rapid zero-crossing of radial group velocity of drift wave and is found to be strongly correlated with the GAM onset. Many features peculiar to intermittent GAMs, observed in real machines, are thus identified in the numerical experiment. The results will be displayed in figures and in a movie; first for single central rational surface, and then with coupled multiple central rational surfaces. The periodic bursting first shown disappears as being replaced by irregular one, more similar to the intermittent characteristics observed in GAM experiments.

The conductive shell in reversed field pinch devices plays an important role in controlling plasma and in suppressing MHD instabilities. The shell in the Keda torus experiment reversed field pinch (KTX-RFP) device includes a 6-mm stainless steel vacuum chamber and a 1.5-mm stabilizing copper shell. This stabilizing shell has both poloidal and toroidal gaps to allow a coupling of electromagnetic energy to the plasma. Nevertheless, any gaps in this shell generate error fields. A 3D electromagnetic field model has been used to study effects of the gap on the shell. Using off-center current filaments instead of the distributed plasma current density, numerical analyses render the induced current distribution on the stabilizing shell and the resultant error field distribution at a specific frequency. From the analyses and comparisons of different configurations for the stabilizing shell, a suitable shell design is chosen consisting of three sections: one primary shell, two poloidal shield shells, and two toroidal shield shells. Moreover, the time evolution of the magnetic field inside and outside the stabilizing shell was obtained for this design and the dependence of the magnetic field penetration time on mode number and location has been investigated.

A front-end optics system has been developed for the EAST microwave imaging reflectometry for 2D density fluctuation measurement. Via the transmitter optics system, a combination of eight transmitter beams with independent frequencies is employed to illuminate wide poloidal regions on eight distinct cutoff layers. The receiver optics collect the reflected wavefront and project them onto the vertical detector array with 12 antennas. Utilizing optimized Field Curvature adjustment lenses in the receiver optics, the front-end optics system provides a flexible and perfect matching between the image plane and a specified cutoff layer in the plasma, which ensures the correct data interpretation of density fluctuation measurement.

On HL-2A, two different injections (supersonic molecular beam injection (SMBI) and pellet injection (PI)) are used to mitigate edge localized mode (ELM)-filament convective transport. The changes of their characteristics are studied in this paper. A high spatiotemporal resolution probe shows there are many similar phenomena, and the filament density amplitude and radial velocity are both suppressed. Our statistical results indicate that: the velocity suppression comes from the decrease of filament density and temperature; the transient particle and heat fluxes drop strongly; and long-range correlation along a magnetic flux surface also decreases, when the electron-ion collisionality increases significantly, which may have a role on the filament parallel current during ELM mitigation.

A feedback control system has been designed for the Keda Torus eXperiment device to achieve the following goals: (a) suppression of the error field at the poloidal gap, (b) three-dimensional plasma stability control, and (c) improvement of plasma discharge quality. The system consists of a boundary electromagnetic probe array, a field-programmable gate array, a linear power amplifier, and an active control coil array. The system adopts a compound control method that includes both active and passive control methods. To control the plasma, an active control coil array is used to generate a localized radial magnetic field as needed at two poloidal gaps of the device. In the open-loop control experiment, the active control coils near the poloidal gaps reduced the original error field and thus increased the plasma discharge current amplitude by 50% and effectively extended the plasma discharge duration.

A poloidal and toroidal magnetic field coupling circuit model is developed to simulate discharge waveforms of the Keda Torus eXperiment (KTX) reversed field pinch (RFP) to ensure that the design of the power supply systems is able to achieve the typical discharge parameters. The radial profiles of plasma current density and magnetic field used in the coupling model are characterized by modified Bessel function model (MBFM) derived from the well-known Taylor's theory. The power balance in the energy conservation of poloidal and toroidal fields is used to establish the connection between these two fields. The numerical solutions of the coupling show that the KTX power supply system is capable of achieving the designed discharge parameters, such as field reversal parameter ( F ), pinch parameter (Θ), magnetic field, plasma current and loop voltage. Furthermore, the delay of magnetic field penetration due to the effect of vacuum vessel is also considered in the model.

The Doppler backscattering system has been widely used for turbulence measurements, and the microwave beam will be backscattered near the cut-off layer when the Brag condition is fulfilled. In tokamak, the ray-tracing code is used to obtain the radial position and perpendicular wave number of the scattering layer for turbulence velocity measurement and the WKB (Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin) approximation should be satisfied for optical propagation. To calculate the backscattering location and wave number at the cut-off layer only, a single ray tracing in the cross section is enough, while for spatial and wave number resolution calculation, multiple rays reflecting the microwave beam size should be used. Considering the angle between the wave vector and the magnetic field, a three-dimension quasi-optical Gaussian ray tracing is sometimes needed.

The Vacuum Vessel (VV) system is a vital component of Keda Torus for eXperiment (KTX). Various accidental scenarios might occur on the VV. In this report, an extreme scenario is assumed and studied: plasma accidental termination during the flat-top stage. Numerical simulations based on finite element are performed as the major tool for analyses. The detailed distributions of eddy and the reaction forces on VV are extracted, and the total eddy current and the maximum reaction force due to electromagnetic load are figured out. In addition, according to the results, the VV can be approximately regarded as a centrally symmetric structure, even though its ports distribution is asymmetric.

KTX (Keda Torus for eXperiment) is a new reversed field pinch device. The KTX plasma control system (PCS) can provide real-time, stable, flexible plasma control which is designed by ASIPP (Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences), based on the Linux cluster system and EPICS (Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System) framework, and developed from DIII-D (Doublet III-D) PCS. The control of the equilibrium field in KTX uses a PID (Proportional-Integral-Derivative) feedback controller. The control of the gas injection is an open loop control. The plasma control simulation system is one part of the plasma control system, which is used to test the plasma control algorithm if it is revised and updated. The KTX PCS has been successfully tested using HT-7 (Hefei Torus 7) experiment data in simulation mode. In the next phase, an error field feedback control and KTX simulator will be added to the KTX PCS, and the KTX PCS will be applied in experiments in the future.

The Vacuum Vessel (VV) system is an essential component of Keda Torus for eXperiment (KTX), and various scenarios might take place on it. The VV's supports should be adequately strong to stand against various loads on VV, which might happen in extreme scenarios. Therefore, the design of VV supports is verified in a single extreme scenario and is subsequently optimized in this report. The numerical simulation based on Finite Element theory is performed as the major method for analysis and optimization. The electromagnetic force in previous analyses serves as the load for the mechanical analyses of supports. During the optimization, the stresses of the VV supports decrease remarkably after introducing cotters. Finally, the optimum design has been worked out. It satisfies the requirements regarding the strength and convenience in assembly.

Doppler backscattering system can measure the perpendicular velocity and fluctuation amplitude of the density turbulence with intermediate wavenumber. An eight-channel Doppler backscattering system has been installed in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), which can probe eight different radial locations simultaneously by launching eight fixed frequencies (55, 57.5, 60, 62.5, 67.5, 70, 72.5, 75 GHz) into plasma. The quasi-optical system consists of circular corrugated waveguide transmission, a fixed parabolic mirror, and a rotatable parabolic mirror which are integrated with quasi-optics front-end of the profile reflectometer inside the vacuum vessel. The incidence angle can be chosen from 5° to 12°, and the wavenumber range is 2-15/cm with the wavenumber resolution Δk/k≤0.21. Ray tracing simulations are used to calculate the scattering locations and the perpendicular wavenumber. The dynamic range of this new eight-channel Doppler backscattering system can be as large as 40 dB in the EAST. In this article, the hardware design, the ray tracing, and the preliminary experimental results in the EAST will be presented.

A 40-channel capacitive probe has been developed to measure the electrostatic fluctuations associated with the tearing modes deep into Madison Symmetric Torus (MST) reversed field pinch plasma. The capacitive probe measures the ac component of the plasma potential via the voltage induced on stainless steel electrodes capacitively coupled with the plasma through a thin annular layer of boron nitride (BN) dielectric (also serves as the particle shield). When bombarded by the plasma electrons, BN provides a sufficiently large secondary electron emission for the induced voltage to be very close to the plasma potential. The probe consists of four stalks each with ten cylindrical capacitors that are radially separated by 1.5 cm. The four stalks are arranged on a 1.3 cm square grid so that at each radial position, there are four electrodes forming a square grid. Every two adjacent radial sets of four electrodes form a cube. The fluctuating electric field can be calculated by the gradient of the plasma potential fluctuations at the eight corners of the cube. The probe can be inserted up to 15 cm (r/a = 0.7) into the plasma. The capacitive probe has a frequency bandwidth from 13 Hz to 100 kHz, amplifier-circuit limit, sufficient for studying the tearing modes (5-30 kHz) in the MST reversed-field pinch.

The Keda Torus eXperiment (KTX) is a new reversed field pinch (RFP) device at the University of Science and Technology of China. The construction and assembly of KTX, including the vacuum chamber, conducting shell, magnetic field windings, power supply system, active control coils, vacuum pump and data acquisition system, have been completed on August 1, 2015. Immediately following that, the first plasma was obtained on August 15, 2015. Intensive conditioning of the machine is underway to ramp up the plasma current toward its full operation. An active feedback mode control system has been built and has been implemented to control the error field around the vertical gaps of the conducting shell. The pulsed power supply systems of ohmic heating field and toroidal field (TF), using thyristor and energy storage capacitors, have been tested and commissioned. The TF power supply has flexibility in being able to operate with a reversed TF configuration and stable TF configuration. The fundamental diagnostic tools are developed for early KTX operation. Currently, the plasma current is up to 205 kA and the maximum discharge length is 21 ms, approaching to the conducting shell penetration time. Furthermore, typical RFP discharges are being produced with RFP state lasting 2 ms. These initial operation results for KTX are described in detail.

The KTX device is a reversed field pinch (RFP) device currently under construction. Its maximum plasma current is designed as 1 MA with a discharge time longer than 100 ms. Its major radius is 1.4 m and its minor radius is 0.55 m. One of the most important problems in the magnet system design is how to reduce the TF magnetic field ripple and error field. A new wedge-shaped TF coil is put forward for the KTX device and its electromagnetic properties are compared with those of rectangular-shaped TF coils. The error field Bn/Bt of wedge-shaped TF coils with 6.4 degrees is about 6% as compared with 8% in the case of a rectangular-shaped TF coil. Besides, the wedge-shaped TF coils have a lower magnetic field ripple at the edge of the plasma region, which is smaller than 7.5% at R=1.83 m and 2% at R=1.07 m. This means that the tokamak operation mode may be feasible for this device when the plasma area becomes smaller, because the maximum ripple in the plasma area of the tokamak model is always required to be smaller than 0.4%. Detailed analysis of the results shows that the structure of the wedged-shape TF coil is reliable. It can serve as a reference for TF coil design of small aspect ratio RFPs or similar torus devices.

KeDa Torus for eXperiment (KTX) is a reversed field pinch magnetic confinement fusion research device whose main parameters are between in the RFX and MST. The base vacuum of KTX is 1 × 10−6 Pa. Six sets of turbomolecular pumps parallel installed in the six horizontal ports which served as the main pumping system for KTX and the diameters of the ports are 0.15 m. Before plasma discharge, glow discharge cleaning (GDC) system is applied to clean C, O and hydrocarbon impurity on the vacuum vessel (VV) surfaces of KTX. An inflation system and residual gas analyzer system are designed to supply the working gas and monitoring the effect of GDC respectively. According to the GDC experiment practice, the working gas pressure of the KTX GDC system is designed as 0.3 Pa, with average current density of 0.15 A/m2. Two sets of the GDC probes are installed in KTX horizontal ports symmetrically with interval angle of 180o and the input current of each anode is 1.6 A. According to the current density distribution, the centre of the VV cross section is the superior working area for GDC anode, a screw-nut pairs with the cooperation of bellows can transfer the anode from its storage position to its working position, and the stroke of the screw-nut pairs is 0.5 m. Based on the temperature rise calculation, the maximum equilibrium temperature of the anode during glow discharge is about 275 °C (under 200 °C baking). The thermal stresses caused by the temperature distribution on the anode’s components especially in the vacuum brazing areas are inspected during GDC process. All the simulation results show that the structure and base material of the KTX GDC anode can work normally without additional active cooling system.

We have developed a parametric method for eliminating the background component of the plasma current, which is measured by a Rogowski coil and polluted by the toroidal magnetic field in the vacuum vessel of the Keda Torus eXperiment (KTX) reversed field pinch (RFP) device. The method considers the toroidal magnetic field windings, the KTX vacuum chamber, and the Rogowski coil as a linear time-invariant system; in this case, a constant frequency response function characterizes the system. Using this response function, the current component caused by pollution from the toroidal magnetic field can be predicted exactly for an arbitrary input current to the toroidal magnetic field windings. Compared with the traditional proportional compensation method, the proposed method has great flexibility and universality and it is potentially applicable to cases in which the toroidal field current signal changes over time with plasma feedback signals. Furthermore, the method can be applied to other similarly affected signals, such as magnetic field signals. As an example, we have corrected the poloidal and toroidal magnetic field signals better to reveal the true physical processes for the RFP state.

An automatic beam alignment system based on relative reference points is developed for the Thomson scattering system on Keda Torus eXperiment. Two critical apertures around the vacuum vessel are designed to shield stray light, and a probe beam is required to go through the centers of these two apertures, which are the reference points for alignment. Since these two apertures are coated with light absorbing materials, three fibers with glowing tips are employed to indicate the centers of two apertures. CMOS cameras are used to monitor beam deviations. The misalignment correction is achieved by driving piezomotor mirror mounts via a program developed with LabVIEW, which includes the image acquisition and processing module and the deviation correction module. As a result, this system can correct beam misalignment in less than 20 s and suppress the long-term drift of laser pointing in ±10 μrad. Also, this system has the capability to correct up to about 2.3 mm of camera shift with our experiment condition.

A series of discharges achieving high- β N ( > 1.5 ) H-mode phases were obtained on EAST with both LHW and NBI as the heating power, a tungsten divertor, an unfavorable ▽ B × B direction configuration for the L-H transition and a lower toroidal field ( B T ∼ 1.6 T ). The experimental power threshold with the unfavorable direction configuration appeared to be higher than previous results with favorable directions in 2014 and 2015, although the tungsten divertor configurations were believed to benefit the L-H transition compared to a graphite divertor. The proportions of LHW and NBI power modulated the ratio of electron temperature to ion temperature, accompanied with an optimal ratio that caused a minimum P l o s s . The WCM might have prolonged the dwell time. The power threshold increased with increasing L ∥ and lower OLL lead to lower power threshold. Better energy confinement was observed during the high- β N H-mode phases.

The Keda Torus eXperiment (KTX) is still operated in the commissioning phase, and preparation for the operation capability of the KTX phase II upgrade is underway. The diagnostics in the KTX have been greatly developed: (1) the terahertz interferometer has been upgraded to seven chords for electron density profile inversion; (2) a Thomson scattering system with a 5 Joule laser has been installed and commissioning is in progress; (3) a 3D movable probe system has been developed for the electromagnetic turbulence measurement; (4) double-foil soft x-ray imaging diagnostics have been set up and a bench test has been completed; (5) an edge capacitive probe has been installed for the radial electrical field measurement; (6) a multi-channel spectrograph system has been built for detecting impurities of carbon and oxygen. In addition, the design of a new compact torus injection system has been completed for feeding and momentum driving. Pilot research, such as the 3D reversed field pinch physics and electromagnetic turbulence, etc, have been conducted in the discharge status of the KTX. The 3D spectra characters of electromagnetic turbulence are firstly measured using a classical two-point technique by Langmuir probe arrays set on the 3D movable probe system and edge magnetic sensors. The forward scattering is collected by the interferometer system, which shows the potential for turbulence research. The electromagnetic turbulence is tentatively investigated in the KTX. The formation of a quasi-single-helicity state in the KTX regime is also preliminarily explored in simulation.