TPE upgrade for enhancing operational safety and improving in-vessel tritium inventory assessment in fusion nuclear environment

The Tritium Plasma Experiment (TPE) is a unique high-flux linear plasma device that can handle beryllium, tritium, and neutron-irradiated plasma facing materials, and is the only existing device dedicated to evaluate in-vessel tritium inventory in the nuclear environment for fusion safety. The electrical upgrade were recently carried out to enhance operational safety and to improve plasma performance. New DC power supplies and a new control center enable remote plasma operations from outside of the contamination area for tritium, minimizing the possible exposure risk with tritium and beryllium and eliminating heat stress issue. In November 2015, the TPE successfully achieved first deuterium plasma via remote operation after a significant three-year upgrade. Simple linear scaling estimate showed that the TPE is expected to achieve Γimax of >1.0 × 1023 m−2 s−1 and qheat of >1 MW m−2 with new power supplies. This upgrade not only improves operational safety of the worker, but also enhances plasma performance to better simulate extreme plasma-material conditions expected in ITER, FNSF, and DEMO for improving in-vessel tritium inventory assessment in fusion nuclear environment.