The procurement of the two transmitters for the Ion Cyclotron Resonance heating of DTT plasmas has been entrusted to the grouping of the two qualified companies: Energy Technology Srl (OCEM) and System Engineering Solutions Srl (SYES).
OCEM, settled in Valsamoggia (BO), belongs to “small and medium-sized” companies. It has developed custom-made products for nuclear fusion technology for decades, focusing great attention on the research and development process. SYES (Lissone, MB, Italy) is a leading company in solid-state radiofrequency technologies since the 80’s. It has successfully manufactured radiofrequency equipment since over 40 years, also for scientific applications.
The kick-off meeting of the contract was held few weeks ago with the participation of both the company representatives and DTT and ENEA researchers. The construction of the transmitters will take around 30 months; during production, several intermediate tests are scheduled including the testing of a prototype at both the manufacturer and the DTT site.
Transmitters are the radio frequency amplifiers that generate high-power waves, aimed at the ion cyclotron resonance plasmas heating. Each transmitter will deliver 1.2 MW for 50 seconds in the frequency range from 60 to 90 MHz. For the first time, such combination of output power, pulse duration and bandwidth will be entirely accomplished by means of solid-state technology, resulting in a remarkable technological breakthrough. In Fig. 1 a layout of the system is reported.
Fig. 1 Layout of the Ion Cyclotron Resonance heating system