Demonstration of Direct Energy Recovery of Full Energy Ions at 40 keV on a PLT/ISX Beam System

The injection of neutral hydrogen or deuterium particles continues to be the most promising means of heating magnetically confined fusion plasmas to ignition temperatures. Neutral beam injection systems that employ positive ion sources presently operate at energies of about 40-50 keV/nucleon at 60 A [Princeton Large Torus (PLT)] or 100 A [Princeton Divertor Experiment (PDX) or the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Impurities Study Experiment (ISX)] with about 60% conversion efficiency. However, the desire for multisecond beams in the 80-keV/nucleon energy range at ~ 10 MW/module has emphasized the need for technological advances in several areas. At such beam energies, as much as 75% of the initial beam energy is retained in the unneutralized ion components. As a result, two questions immediately come to mind: (1) how can one dispose of this energy; or better still, (2) how can one efficiently recover this energy? The conventional way of treating such a problem is to deflect the ions out of the neutral beam and onto water-cooled plates or beam dumps. This method has worked satisfactorily for 40-keV/nucleon beams in excess of 1.5 MW and ~0.5 s. However, the power per unit area to be disposed of in the high power, multisecond beams mentioned above is beyond present-day technology.