Energy processing system for disposing plasma electromagnetic energy during disruption in tokamak

During disruption, plasma electromagnetic energy usually damages tokamak devices severely. Thus, this paper presents a five-part energy processing system (EPS) to handle this energy. The five parts of the EPS are as follows: the metal oxide varistors employed to limit overvoltage and to absorb energy, the resistor module applied to consume energy, the pulse capacitor module used to store energy, the inverter module used for energy feedback, and the controller. These parts are described and their key design features introduced. The influence of the different capacitances and resistances on the amount of energy transferred is investigated. Optimal capacitance is approximately 0.36 F, and resistance is roughly 2 mΩ. On the basis of the analysis and the plasma disruption in J-TEXT tokamak, a simulation is conducted with PSIM program. The simulation results show that part of the plasma electromagnetic energy can be extracted from the tokamak device and disposed by the EPS. This disposed energy is approximately 10 kJ and accounts for 20% of the total plasma electromagnetic energy during disruptions in the J-TEXT tokamak. EPS reduces the total energy consumption in the vacuum vessel and consequently mitigates plasma disruption.