Heater design and thermal analysis of cathode assembly for 170 GHZ, 1 MW gyrotron

An activity of design and development of 170 GHz gyrotron is started at CEERI Pilani. 170 GHz is chosen ECRH frequency at ITER and total 24 MW of RF power generated from gyrotrons will be pumped into the ECRH system of ITER. This paper presents the design of toroid shape heater for dispenser cathode and the thermal analysis of complete cathode assembly for 3.2 MW triode type MIG for 170 GHz gyrotron. Finite element method based simulation tool ANSYS Work Banch (v.14.0) is used in the simulations. In the heater design, various electrical and geometrical parameters such as filament radius, number of turns, wire thickness, heater voltage, etc are optimized. The temperature on heater is optimized around 1600 °C considering the cathode temperature around 1100 °C. Tungsten is used as the filament material due to its excellent thermal properties. After the design of heater, thermal analysis is also performed for the complete cathode assembly. Various types of potting materials are also investigated. (author)