Fuelling efficiency of massive gas injection in TEXTOR: mass scaling and importance of gas flow dynamics

Fuelling efficiency is an important parameter in designing a massive gas injection system for suppression of runaway electrons in ITER. In this work Z-dependence of fuelling efficiency is measured for TEXTOR. The dependence covers the following gases: He, Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe and a 10% Ar–D2 mixture. It is shown that the fuelling efficiency significantly decreases with the gas mass, from above 0.5 for He to below 0.03 for Xe.To explain the variation of the efficiency with the gas mass and pressure a simple model of gas flow from the valve to the plasma edge is developed. The flow model is validated using available laboratory flow measurements of a TEXTOR-like injection system. An unsteady gas flow and a premature plasma disruption are shown to explain the mass dependence of the efficiency.