Th. Loewenhoff

Evolution of tungsten degradation under combined high cycle edge-localized mode and steady-state heat loads

Combined thermal shock and steady-state heat loads (SSHLs) can have an impact on divertor materials and are therefore important for lifetime estimations and evaluations of operational thresholds of divertor components in future fusion devices such as ITER. This paper discusses the results of tests performed in the electron beam facility JUDITH 2 (Forschungszentrum Julich, Germany) on actively cooled tungsten specimens, loaded with edge-localized mode-like thermal shocks (pulse duration 0.48 ms, power densities 0.14–0.55 GW m−2, frequency 25 Hz and up to 1000 000 pulses) either with or without an additional SSHL of 10 MW m−2. The material showed no damage at 0.14 GW m−2 (independent of the SSHL) for up to 250 000 pulses. At a power density of 0.27 GW m−2 (without SSHL), surface roughening occurred at 100 000 pulses, developing into a crack network at 1000 000 pulses. In general, the additional SSHL resulted in an earlier (in terms of pulse number) and more severe material degradation.

Thermal Shock Tests to Qualify Different Tungsten Grades as Plasma Facing Material

The electron beam device JUDITH 1 was used to establish a testing procedure for the qualification of tungsten as plasma facing material. Absorbed power densities of 0.19 and 0.38 GW m−2 for an edge localized mode-like pulse duration of 1 ms were chosen. Furthermore, base temperatures of room temperature, 400 °C and 1000 °C allow investigating the thermal shock performance in the brittle, ductile and high temperature regime. Finally, applying 100 pulses under all mentioned conditions helps qualifying the general damage behaviour while with 1000 pulses for the higher power density the influence of thermal fatigue is addressed. The investigated reference material is a tungsten product produced according to the ITER material specifications. The obtained results provide a general overview of the damage behaviour with quantified damage characteristics and thresholds. In particular, it is shown that the damage strongly depends on the microstructure and related thermo-mechanical properties.

Impact of combined transient plasma/heat loads on tungsten performance below and above recrystallization temperature

The influence of recrystallization on thermal shock resistance has been identified as an issue that may influence the long term performance of ITER tungsten (W) divertor components. To investigate this issue a unique series of experiments has been performed on ITER divertor W monoblock mock-ups in three EU high heat flux facilities: GLADIS (neutral beam), JUDITH 2 (electron beam) and Magnum-PSI (plasma beam). To simulate ITER mitigated edge localised modes, heat fluxes between 0.11 and 0.6 GW m−2 were applied for Δt < 1 ms. Two different base temperatures, Tbase = 1200 °C and 1500 °C, were chosen on which ~18 000/100 000 transient events were superimposed representing several full ITER burning plasma discharges in terms of number of transients and particle fluence. An increase in roughening for both e-beam and plasma loaded surfaces was observed when loading during or after recrystallization and when loading at higher temperature. However, regarding the formation of cracks and microstructural modifications the response was different for e-beam and plasma loaded surfaces. The samples loaded in Magnum-PSI did not crack nor show any sign of recrystallization, even at Tbase = 1500 °C. This could be a dynamic hydrogen flux effect, because pre-loading of samples with hydrogen neutrals (GLADIS) or without hydrogen (e-beam JUDITH 2) did not yield this result. These results show clearly that the loading method used when investigating and qualifying the thermal shock performance of materials for ITER and future fusion reactors can play an important role. This should be properly accounted for and in fact should be the subject of further R&D.

Progress on performance assessment of ITER enhanced heat flux first wall technology after neutron irradiation

ITER first wall (FW) panels are irradiated by energetic neutrons during the nuclear phase. Thus, an irradiation and high heat flux testing programme is undertaken by the ITER organization in order to evaluate the effects of neutron irradiation on the performance of enhanced heat flux (EHF) FW components. The test campaign includes neutron irradiation (up to 0.6–0.8 dpa at 200 °C–250 °C) of mock-ups that are representative of the final EHF FW panel design, followed by thermal fatigue tests (up to 4.7 MW m−2). Mock-ups were manufactured by the same manufacturing process as proposed for the series production. After a pre-irradiation thermal screening, eight mock-ups will be selected for the irradiation campaigns. This paper reports the preparatory work of HHF tests and neutron irradiation, assessment results as well as a brief description of mock-up manufacturing and inspection routes.

Experimental and numerical assessment of normal heat flux first wall qualification mock-ups under ITER relevant conditions

The ITER first wall (FW) panel consists of beryllium in the form of tiles covering its surface, high strength copper alloy as the heat sink material and stainless steel as the structural material. Small-scale normal heat flux FW mock-ups, provided by Fusion for Energy, are tested in the electron beam facility JUDITH 2 at Forschungszentrum Julich to determine the performance of this design under thermal fatigue. The mock-ups are loaded cyclically under a surface heat flux of 2 MW m−2 with ITER relevant water coolant conditions. In this study, three-dimensional finite element method thermo-mechanical analyses are performed with ANSYS to simulate the thermal fatigue behaviour of the mock-ups. The temperature results indicate that the beryllium surface temperature is below the maximum allowed temperature (600 °C) of beryllium to be tested. The thermal mechanical results indicate that copper rupture and debonding between Be and copper are the drivers of the failure of a mock-up. In addition, the experimental data, e.g. the surface temperature measured using an infrared camera and the bulk temperature measured using thermocouples, are reported. A comparative study between experimental and simulation results is performed.