Reduction of recycling in DIII-D by degassing and conditioning of the graphite tiles

Reduced recycling, reduced edge neutral pressure, improved density control, and improved discharge reproducibility have been achieved in the DIII-D tokamak by in situ helium conditioning of the graphite tiles. An improvement in energy confinement has been observed in hydrogen discharges with hydrogen beam injection after helium preconditioning. After the graphite wall coverage in DIII-D was increased to 40%, helium glow wall conditioning, routinely applied before each tokamak discharge, has been necessary to reduce recycling and obtain H-mode. The utilization of helium glow wall conditioning was an important factor in the achievement of an ohmic H-mode, i.e. no auxillary heating, with significant improvement in ohmic energy confinement. 16 refs., 8 figs