Defining the infrared systems for ITER

Visible imaging system with changeable field of view on the HL-2A tokamak

A new visible imaging system characterizing a flexible optical design and delivering high resolution frames is established on the HL-2A tokamak. It features a modular configuration, consisting of a front-end imaging lens, a set of bilateral telecentric relay lenses, and a camera. To avoid the effects of plasma radiation (x and gamma-rays) and magnetic field variation on the camera, it should be away from the coils. Therefore, the length of the relay lenses determines the total size of the imaging system. The main feature of this imaging system is to realize the variation of field of view (FOV) by interchanging the front-end prime lenses or by using a zoom lens directly rather than designing the optical system afresh, which lowers the cost drastically. The primary purpose of varying FOV is to enrich the versatility of this system, i.e., focusing on a narrow FOV such as gas puff imaging or a wide FOV such as the plasma cross sections. During the HL-2A experiments, this visible imaging system is used to provide high quality pictures of the plasma-wall interaction, divertor detachment, pellet injections, and so on. The frames confirmed that a strong radiation close to the X point is correlated with the completely detached inner target.

Dual two-color method: A new concept of ultra-wide temperature range thermography (200-3600 °C) for ITER divertor infrared thermography

A new temperature measurement method-the dual two-color method-was developed to accurately measure the temperature over an ultra-wide temperature range (200-3600 °C) for ITER divertor infrared thermography. This novel method introduces a third wavelength filter to the conventional two-color method by replacing the shorter single wavelength bandpass filter with a customized dual-bandpass filter having two transmission bands, without having to add a third infrared camera. The dominant wavelength band of the total radiance through the dual-band filter changes automatically as the temperature increases and, consequently, either the shorter or longer wavelength band of the dual-bandpass filter is used to establish the two-color combination at both low and high temperatures. The dual two-color method increased the acceptable measurement error of the two-color radiance ratio for the temperature measurement requirement of the ITER divertor infrared thermography to 9.45% from that of 4.3% when using the conventional two-color method.

Visible wide-angle view imaging system for the first plasma on the HL-2M tokamak

The wide-angle view imaging system, in terms of a tangential view diagnostic with field of view (FOV) of 56.8° and a downward-looking diagnostic from the top of the machine with FOV of 94.7°, has been newly constructed for the first plasma of the HL-2M tokamak achieved in December 2020. Its mission in this stage is to monitor the plasma evolution during its startup, sustainment, and disruption in the visible spectral range as well as the plasma-wall interaction. For the latter ultrawide view diagnostic, nearly three-quarters of the divertor region and half the area of the inner wall are in the view range. Both the diagnostics are characterized by a similar optical structure, i.e., the light emission from the plasma is collected by a front-end lens and transferred through an imaging fiber bundle to the camera. This optical structure is suitable for application in the complex tokamak environment mainly because the fiber bundle is flexible. Photos of glow discharges are acquired prior to the first plasma for testing the FOVs in the vacuum vessel. The spatial resolution is ∼4mm for the tangential view diagnostic and ∼10mm for the downward-looking diagnostic. The temporal resolutions, ranging from 90 to 360 Hz by changing the region of interest or binning acquisition mode of the color camera, are applied to record the plasma evolutions and/or dust creation events during the first plasma campaign.

Error estimations of the heat flux reconstruction for ITER divertor infrared thermography

This study developed a new heat flux reconstruction code based on the dual reciprocity boundary element method for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) divertor infrared (IR) thermography system. To use divertor heat flux reconstruction in ITER, we modeled the boundary condition between the coolant pipe inner wall and the coolant based on the temperature-dependent heat transfer coefficient and also considered the temperature dependence of tungsten thermal properties. Using this reconstruction code, we evaluated the sensitivity of the input data errors, divertor coolant temperature, and surface temperature errors on the accuracy of heat flux reconstruction by using simplified heat flux profiles, which are spatially uniform on the top surface of the monoblocks. This heat flux reconstruction method demonstrated that highly accurate heat flux reconstruction can be achieved for high heat flux cases in ITER; however, further studies are needed for low heat flux reconstruction.

Concept development for the ITER equatorial port visible∕infrared wide angle viewing system

The ITER equatorial port visible∕infrared wide angle viewing system concept is developed from the measurement requirements. The proposed solution situates 4 viewing systems in the equatorial ports 3, 9, 12, and 17 with 4 views each (looking at the upper target, the inner divertor, and tangentially left and right). This gives sufficient coverage. The spatial resolution of the divertor system is 2 times higher than the other views. For compensation of vacuum-vessel movements, an optical hinge concept is proposed. Compactness and low neutron streaming is achieved by orienting port plug doglegs horizontally. Calibration methods, risks, and R&D topics are outlined.