Plasma position measurements in a tokamak with an iron core transformer

Abstract

Two simple methods of estimating the plasma position in a large-aspect-ratio, low-beta(p) tokamak with an iron core transformer are demonstrated: a magnetic diagnostic method and an optical method. The magnetic diagnostic method utilizes an array of magnetic pickup coils to measure the poloidal magnetic field produced by the plasma current. To include the effects of toroidicity and an iron core transformer, the correction factor was calculated with the magnetic material (or iron core) inside the calculation domain and incorporated in the analysis. The evolution of horizontal and vertical displacement of the plasma center obtained in this way is used to control the KAIST-Tokamak plasmas. To compare the plasma position estimated using the magnetic pickup coils, a simple optical method is also demonstrated on KAIST-TOKAMAK using a composite video signal from a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera. The two results are in good agreement.