Dynamic gas flow during plasma operation in TMX-U

Control of the neutral density outside of the plasma radius is essential for proper operation of the various plasma configurations in TMX-U. TMX-U excess-beam, stream-gun, gas-box, and beam-reflux gases are pumped internally in regions defined by 73/sup 0/ Ti-gettered liners and warm Ti-gettered plasma liners. The array of fast and slow ion gauges - a large TMX-U diagnostic - has been used to measure the dynamic pressure in many of the liner-defined regions on three time scales. The natural divertor action, or plasma pump effect, of mirror plasmas has been measured using the ion gauge diagnostics on a fast time scale during operation of TMX-U with ECRH start-up. Routine operation of TMX-U is enhanced by the ability to verify the effectiveness of gettering and to locate leaks using pressure data collected on the two slow time scales. A computer code, DYNAVAC 6, which treats TMX-U as a set of conductance-coupled regions with pumping and sources in each region, has been used to successfully model the overall gas dynamics during all phases of TMX-U operation