Publication Type
Conference Paper
Publication Date
Conference Name
IAEA Fusion Energy Conference 2002
Conference Location
Lyon, France
Conference Date
Abstract
Coaxial Helicity Injection (CHI) experiments in the NSTX and HIT–II devices are reported. NSTX
has produced toroidal currents of 0.4 MA and pulse lengths of up to 0.33 s. These discharges nearly fill the
NSTX main chamber, and show the n=1 rotating distortion characteristic of high-performance CHI plasmas. CHI
has been used in HIT–II to provide a closed flux startup plasma for inductive drive. The CHI startup method
saves transformer volt-seconds and greatly improves reproducibility and reliability of inductively driven
discharges, even in the presence of diminishing wall conditions.