Test of an extruder feed system on the Tore Supra centrifugal pellet injector

A deuterium ice extruder feed system has been developed by ORNL for adaptation to the existing ORNL Centrifugal Pellet Injector installed on Tore Supra. A detailed assessment of this feed system coupled to the centrifugal launcher has been carried out in a dedicated test bed at Cadarache, to complete and understand the first results obtained at ORNL and to improve them. The results presented in this paper are related to the study of the pellet trajectory from the deuterium ice cutting to the collection of the accelerated pellets in a guide tube. The overall reliability of the injector has been shown to be very sensitive to deviations in the free flight part of the trajectory, before capture by the rotating launcher.