Validation of an ICRF ITER-Like Antenna on Tore Supra

A prototype of an ICRF antenna based on the load-resilient electrical layout foreseen for ITER has been built at CEA-Cadarache [1]. It consists of a two resonant double loop (RDL) based on the conjugate-T concept proposed for the ITER ICRF array arranged toroidally in a close package. The antenna conditioning and commissioning have been successfully performed to validate the load resilience and the heating capability at the end of 2007. On Tore Supra despite unexciting ELMs, the load resilience studies have been conducted in L-mode by mean of slow variations of the plasma position and fast transient variations with both pellet injection and Supersonic Molecular Beam Injection (SMBI). The capability to maintain the RF power on the ITER-like antenna has been done successfully contrary to the classical ICRF antenna during the SMBI shots, in which the corresponding transient coupling resistance increased by a factor 3-4. In term of coupled power, a maximum power density of 6.6 MW/m2 is reached.