Stellarator helical vacuum vessel

A design study of a stainless steel, heavy wall, helically shaped vacuum torus has been made for use in a proposed Stellarator configuration. The study concerns itself with the shape of the vacuum vessel and the division of the vessel into components that can be machined and welded together into a helical configuration. A complication in the design requires that a circular magnet coil be located at the minor toroidal axis and that this coil be embedded within the periphery of the vacuum vessel. The vacuum vessel has a minor toroidal axis diameter of 4 meters, a 68.6-cm shell diameter, and a 1.9-cm wall thickness. It twists about the minor toroidal axis twice in 360/sup 0/C. (An n value of 2). It is proposed that the unit be made of cylindrical segments with the ends of the cylinders cut at appropriate lengths and angles to form the helix. A mathematical derivation of the dimensions necessary to produce the required shapes of the segments has been made. Also, drawings of the vacuum vessel components have been produced on LANL's CTR CAD/CAM system. The procedure developed can be used for any value of n as dictated by physics requirements.