Assessment of the measurement performance of the in vessel system of gap 6 of the ITER plasma position reflectometer using a finite difference time domain Maxwell full wave code.
We conducted a first assessment of the measurement performance of the in vessel components at gap 6 of the ITER plasma position reflectometry with the aid of a synthetic Ordinary Mode (O mode) broadband frequency modulated continuous wave reflectometer implemented with REFMUL, a 2D finite difference time domain full wave Maxwell code. These simulations take into account the system location within the vacuum vessel as well as its access to the plasma. The plasma case considered is a baseline scenario from Fusion for Energy. We concluded that for the analyzed scenario, (i) the plasma curvature and non equatorial position of the antenna have neglectable impact on the measurements; (ii) the cavity like space surrounding the antenna can cause deflection and splitting of the probing beam; and (iii) multi reflections on the blanket wall cause a substantial error preventing the system from operating within the required error margin.
The Review of scientific instruments