Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “electron density”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 361 records · Page 20

Temporal survey of electron number density and electron temperature in the exhaust of a megawatt MPD-arc thruster.

Temporal and radial profiles are obtained 30 cm downstream from the anode for two peak arc currents (11.2 kA and 20 kA) and for various auxiliary magnetic fields (0, 1.0 T, and 2.0 T) using the Thomson scattering technique. Average density and temperature are relatively constant for over 100 microseconds with significant fluctuations. Radial profiles obtained are relatively flat for 4 cm from the axis. Compared to earlier 20 cm data, the exhaust density has decreased significantly, the average temperature has not changed, and the density ?hole' with an auxiliary magnetic field has enlarged.

Michels, C. J.↗

Improved accuracy and robustness of electron density profiles from JET’s X-mode frequency-modulated continuous-wave reflectometers

JET’s frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) reflectometers have been operating well with the current design since 2005, and density profiles have been automatically calculated intershot since then. However, the calculated profiles had long suffered from several shortcomings: poor agreement with other diagnostics, sometimes inappropriately moving radially by several centimeters, elevated levels of radial jitter, and persistent wriggles (strong unphysical oscillations). Here, in this research, several techniques are applied to the reflectometry data analysis, and the shortcomings are significantly improved. Starting with improving the equilibrium reconstruction that estimates the background magnetic field, adding a ripple correction in the reconstructed magnetic field profile, and adding new inner-wall reflection positions estimated through ray-tracing, these changes not only improve the agreement of reconstructed profiles to other diagnostics but also solve density profile wriggles that were present during band transitions. Other smaller but also persistent wriggles were also suppressed by applying a localized correction to the measured beat frequency where persistent oscillations are present. Finally, the burst analysis method, as introduced by Varela et al., has been implemented to extract the beat frequency from stacked spectrograms. Due to the strong suppression of spurious reflections, the radial jitter that sometimes would span several centimeters has been strongly reduced. The stacking of spectrograms has also been shown to be very useful for stacking recurring events, like small gas puff modulations, and extracting transport coefficients that would otherwise be below the noise level.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Electron density profile and associated fluctuation measurements using a microwave reflectometry diagnostic on Helically Symmetric eXperiment (HSX)

Abstract A dual-band frequency-modulated reflectometry is employed on the Helically Symmetric eXperiment (HSX) stellarator. This system equips a fast PIN switch to alternate the frequency source between two voltage-controlled oscillators, providing an operational frequency range from 14.5 GHz to 25.5 GHz. A monostatic antenna geometry and an ellipsoidal mirror are implemented in the vessel of HSX, where the polarization of the transmitted microwave can be switched between O- and X-mode to accommodate the magnetic field and plasma density. Although the original system was designed for density fluctuation measurement, significant efforts have been undertaken to improve the system performance and to realize the density profile inversion. Recent improvements of the system reported here include calibration of the dispersion in the transmission line, optimization of the waveform, and implementation of the Choi-Williams time–frequency distribution for spectral analysis. In this paper, we present the optimization of the reflectometry system along with first experimental measurements of the density profile and observations of fluctuations during gas puffing experiments.

Han, X. (ORCID:0000000184986433)↗