Assessment of the JET ICRH system performance since 2000

The paper provides an assessment of the ion-cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) system performance on JET since the year 2000. The vast amount of collected data offer an insight into the historical challenges and trends in the ICRH system performance encompassing the transition from carbon (JET-C) to beryllium & tungsten ITER-like wall (JET-ILW) operations, the deuterium–tritium experiments (DTE2 & DTE3) and introduction of new RF antenna & matching systems. The best achieved operational parameters are reported and statistics on the RF plant reliability and performance is analysed. Antenna-plasma coupling is identified as the dominant factor critical to all the aspects of the ICRH system behaviour; parametric dependencies of coupling resistance on plasma parameters and the RF plant settings are discussed and the key role of local electron concentration profiles close to the antennas is highlighted. Following confident antenna performance at high RF voltages over the recent decade, observations are presented suggesting improved electrical strength of the RF vacuum components after the JET-C to JET-ILW transition; this is tentatively attributed to the reduction of dust levels in the JET vessel. Statistics on application rate and typical origins of the RF amplifier failures and protection power limits is presented indicating that the amplifier issues noticeably affected the high-power ICRH operations. Performance comparison is provided for different RF antenna & matching systems installed at JET since 2000 including the original system, two load-tolerant systems based on the 3 dB hybrid and external conjugate-T power-splitters, and the ITER-like antenna. The paper could be of interest both as a summary of technical challenges, constraints and achievements related to the ICRH application on JET and as a reference for design and operations of high-power RF systems in future fusion devices.