Design and subsystems tests for the TPM-1U tokamak

A small tokamak (0.45 m major radius, 0.15 m minor radius) is currently being designed and constructed at CICATA Queretaro in Mexico. The purpose of these machines, as is the case of other machines of similar size in operation around the world, is twofold: allow hands-on experience to students in order to gain a practical understanding of magnetically confined hot plasmas, and also to test innovative ideas that may be impractical to put to test in large machines. The present work highlights three efforts towards the realization of this small machine: toroidal field (TF) power system, ohmic transformer (OT) power system and electromechanical design for the TF coil array. All these efforts are focused on achieving the desired parameters of the machine minimizing the infrastructure cost; that is, performing a careful design that makes efficient use of, to name a couple, materials and power storage infrastructure. In the TF power system front, a scheme based on a line-type pulser to generate the required current pulse is being explored and tested in a scaled prototype; detachable toroidal field coils (and vessel sections) are under development to overcome the difficulty of installing and removing in vessel components in small machines; on the OT design, hybrid capacitive/inductive energy storage for powering the central solenoid and its influence on pulse shaping is also being explored in a scaled-down prototype; and finally, finite element simulations of mechanical stresses on TF coils and support structure are also being performed that may allow an adequate mechanical stability to the machine during shots.