Manufacturing process and tests of a lower hybrid passive active multi-junction launcher for long pulse experiments on Tore-Supra

A new Passive Active Multijunction (PAM) Lower Hybrid heating and Current Drive (LHCD) launcher, has been successfully manufactured and tested on Tore-Supra (TS). The design and the fabrication of this new actively cooled launcher based on the PAM concept, as the present ITER LHCD design, is a major component of the TS CIMES project (Components for the Injection of Matter and Energy in Steady-state), and will play a key role in the TS near term program. To achieve 1000 s pulses with a power flux of 25 MW/m2 the PAM launcher has been designed for steady state (CW) operation (active cooling) with the objective of coupling 2.7 MW of LHCD power to the plasma at 3.7 GHz with a parallel index N∥ = 1.7 ± 0.2. The launcher has achieved its qualifications tests, i.e. low power Radio Frequency measurements, vacuum and hydraulic leak tests, and has been installed on Tore-Supra tokamak in September 2009. It is commissioning on plasma started a month later, quickly achieving its design performance of 2.7 MW on a 35 s pulse. After a technical description of the PAM, this paper presents an overview of the project phases (RF optimization, manufacturing and qualification) and concludes with the first experimental results of the PAM.