Author: Schrock, K.
Paper Title Page
MOPWA066 Components of Heating and Fueling of Fusion Plasmas 831
 
  • K. Schrock, M.P.J. Gaudreau, M.K. Kempkes
    Diversified Technologies, Inc., Bedford, Massachusetts, USA
 
  Funding: Funded by US DOE, Grant # DE-SC0004250
Next generation fusion facilities will require many megawatts of RF power from dozens of gyrotrons. Each gyrotron requires a power system that must deliver the high-voltage power, modulate cathode voltage, and protect these expensive gyrotrons from arcing damage. It must be highly efficient, to minimize both the power and cooling costs associated with operation and to ensure high facility availability. Diversified Technologies, Inc. (DTI) has bench-tested a table-top scale ‘Buck Matrix’ modulator which uses a single set of IGBT switches for voltage regulation, arc protection, and pulse modulation. Although pulse step modulators represent a one-step solution, their size, and the complexity of their driving transformer make them more expensive than DTI’s two-step approach. DTI’s Buck Matrix modulator, with an efficiency of ~96%, cuts the size of the system in half, using a single layer of solid state switches for both voltage regulation and arc protection/modulation. This cuts the total hardware costs by a~30% or more, and eliminates the need for a separate opening switch or crowbar. DTI will present the system components of the design as well as the performance results to date.