RF tests of the electrical insulations for the toroidal structures of RFX

Modified conducting structures of the RFX machine have been designed to intentionally reduce electrical discontinuities, thus error fields due to eddy currents have been substantially reduced also. For this reason, for example, the stabilizing shell features a single poloidal and a single equatorial gap. Electrical insulations of those gaps shall be verified before and during the assembly phase of the various components. On the other hand, an applied voltage test can not be carried out in the quasi-static regime, so a radio frequency (RF) method has been used. This paper deals with description of the test bed, set up to verify the feasibility of the RF test and to set up the necessary equipments. Moreover, all the tests carried out are described in details together with the actions taken to overcome some of the problems which arise with radiated electromagnetic power. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.