Performance of the Ignitor Pellet Injector

ENEA and ORNL have built a four barrel, two-stage pneumatic injector for the Ignitor experiment featuring two innovative concepts: (i) an optimal shaping of the propellant pressure pulse to improve pellet acceleration, and (ii) the use of fast closing ($<$ 10 ms) valves to drastically reduce the expansion volumes of the propellant gas removal system. The injector is designed to deliver pellets of different sizes with velocities up to 4 km/s, capable of penetrating near the center of the plasma column when injected from the low field side in Ignitor burning plasmas ($n_0\cong 10^{21} \rm m^{-3}$, $T_0 \cong 11 $ keV). The ENEA sub-system, which includes the two-stage guns and pulse-shaping valves, the gas removal system, with associated controls and diagnostics, and the ORNL sub-system, consisting of the cryostat and pellet diagnostics, with related control and data acquisition system, have been assembled in Oak Ridge. Pellet speeds of 2 km/s have been achieved, despite the unfavorable configuration adopted in order to carry out some preliminary tests immediately after assembling the system, a very promising result. A second experimental campaign is planned for the 2008 Fall, when all four diagnostic channels should be complete.