Organization and performance of the neutral beam system for the Tandem Mirror Experiment-Upgrade (TMX-U)

The Tandem Mirror Experiment-Upgrade (TMX-U) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) uses 24 neutral-beam injectors to heat and fuel the experimental plasmas. This system is unique because TMX-U operates four times more injectors than any other fusion experiment. These injectors deliver an average of 50 A (accel) at 17 keV for 75 ms. Source conditioning time has been reduced to approximately four days for the entire system after extended machine air cycles. TMX-U is also unique because it has 35 usable injector assemblies for the 24 power systems. This quantity of injectors makes possible the development of new hardware and injector modifications, and the reconditioning of damaged sources without affecting machine operation. Efficient operation of a system of this size requires coordinated interaction between the injector service groups and the physics organization. The authors describe the current state of TMX-U performance and the aspects of group interaction essential to a project of this size