TRAP Experiment

TRAP is a program to study the use of accelerated FRCs for deep refueling of tokamaks. The program has successfully accelerated FRCs to velocities sufficient to penetrate moderate field tokamaks and the extension to the highest field tokamaks by adding more acceleration stages is straightforward. Currently, the interaction of the FRC with a traverse field is being analyzed, and a high field, repetitively pulsed accelerator is being designed for use on ITER.

The image below is an open shutter photo of a TRAP discharge. The vacuum pumping chamber is in the front right. Moving left are the formation, acceleration, transport and transverse field interaction regions. The interaction region has a large mirror above it to allow high speed photography.