The Fusion Advanced Studies Torus (FAST): a proposal for an ITER satellite facility in support of the development of fusion energy

FAST is a new machine proposed to support ITER experimental exploitation as well as to anticipate DEMO relevant physics and technology. FAST is aimed at studying, under burning plasma relevant conditions, fast particle (FP) physics, plasma operations and plasma wall interaction in an integrated way. FAST has the capability to approach all the ITER scenarios significantly closer than the present day experiments using deuterium plasmas. The necessity of achieving ITER relevant performance with a moderate cost has led to conceiving a compact tokamak (R = 1.82 m, a = 0.64 m) with high toroidal field (BT up to 8.5 T) and plasma current (Ip up to 8 MA). In order to study FP behaviours under conditions similar to those of ITER, the project has been provided with a dominant ion cyclotron resonance heating system (ICRH; 30 MW on the plasma). Moreover, the experiment foresees the use of 6 MW of lower hybrid (LHCD), essentially for plasma control and for non-inductive current drive, and of electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECRH, 4 MW) for localized electron heating and plasma control. The ports have been designed to accommodate up to 10 MW of negative neutral beams (NNBI) in the energy range 0.5–1 MeV. The total power input will be in the 30–40 MW range under different plasma scenarios with a wall power load comparable to that of ITER (P/R ~ 22 MW m−1). All the ITER scenarios will be studied: from the reference H mode, with plasma edge and ELMs characteristics similar to the ITER ones (Q up to ≈1.5), to a full current drive scenario, lasting around 170 s. The first wall (FW) as well as the divertor plates will be of tungsten in order to ensure reactor relevant operation regimes. The divertor itself is designed to be completely removable by remote handling. This will allow us to study (in view of DEMO) the behaviour of innovative divertor concepts, such as those based on liquid lithium. FAST is capable of operating with very long pulses, up to 170 s, despite being a copper machine. The magnets initial operation temperature is 30 K, with cooling provided by helium gas. The in vessel components, namely FW and divertor, are actively cooled by pressurized water above 80 °C. The same water is also used to bake the vacuum vessel. FAST is equipped with ferromagnetic inserts to keep the toroidal field magnet ripple down to 0.3%.