EU Development of the ITER ECRH System

The EU will be providing the largest contribution to the ITER electron cyclotron (EC) heating and current drive (H&CD) system (20 MW, CW at 170 GHz). The contribution includes one third of the H&CD gyrotrons, their associated power supplies and four upper port launcher antennas. In all areas of participation, the EU EC partnership (coordinated by the European Fusion Development Agreement) aims toward advancing the technology, while staying within a specified cost envelope. This is portrayed in the co-axial gyrotron development that offers the potential to double the output power per source (2.0 MW), increasing the delivered power for a fixed number of auxiliary systems. The EU partnerships also attempt to increase performance for the entire EC system, in particular the launching antennas. The proposed front steering launcher design offers greater control of MHD activity than the previous remote steering design and opens up the possibility of an enhanced performance UL. The EC physics requirements are repartitioned between the upper and equatorial launchers for a synergetic balance, which increases the EC physics capabilities while relaxing some of the engineering requirements. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.