In situ study of thermal shock damage to high-temperature ceramics

New generations of fusion devices need alternative plasma-facing materials. The currently approved material composition for the first wall and divertor of the ITER tokamak has a number of disadvantages: insufficient resistance to thermal shock, sputtering of microparticles into plasma and high atomic number Z of the armor material. A promising but largely untested idea is the proposal to use high-temperature ceramics as armor materials for the most heat-loaded plasma-facing components of new-generation fusion devices. Among the advantages of ceramics are the low Z and high enough resistance to intense heating. More research is needed that would help to understand how the material withstands high heat fluxes during transient plasma events. This work is devoted to the description of an experimental method that makes it possible to estimate the critical temperature at which the damage of ceramics begins as a result of a thermal shock of submillisecond duration. As a demonstration of the efficiency of the method, the critical temperature for hot pressed B4C under thermal shock was determined: its value was about 1200–1400 K

Observation of dust particles ejected from the tungsten surface by transient heat flux with small-angle scattering of cw laser light

A new test facility for experimental simulation of transient heat load expected in the ITER divertor during unmitigated events is developed. Application of a long-pulse (0.1–0.3ms) wide-aperture (up to 2cm2) electron beam as a heating device provides powerful energy loads at a tungsten target with FHF> 250MJm−2s−0.5. Dynamics of tungsten particles in the ablation plume is investigated with a novel for PSI experiments small-angle laser light scattering technique. The threshold of intense droplet generation and dynamics of particles sizes are estimated

In-situ study of the processes of damage to the tungsten surface under transient heat loads possible in ITER

Experiments on the effect of fast heat loads on the surface of tungsten were carried out on the BETA facility at the Budker Institute. Tungsten samples were uniformly heated by an electron beam with a heat flux factor below the melting threshold. During and shortly after exposure, the 2D surface temperature distribution was measured, as well as the temperature history on selected surface areas. Active diagnostics using the scattering of CW laser light on a surface exposed by the electron beam allowed us to monitor the damage dynamics. At the heating stage, an increase in the surface roughness occurred, caused by inhomogeneous elastic and plastic deformations of the heated layer. As the cooling progressed, the residual plastic deformations remained. Simultaneously with the modification of the surface, bending of samples with a thickness of 3-4 mm occurred. The bending dynamics of the sample was measured by the intensity of a converging laser beam reflected from the back surface of the sample, polished to a mirror state. The residual sag due to bending increases with the heat load similarly as residual roughness of the front surface of the sample. These data, together with simultaneously measured temperature dynamics and the spatial heating profile, can provide an experimental basis for the numerical calculation of the residual stresses in the sample. The data obtained in situ were compared with those measured outside the vacuum chamber with X-ray diffraction, optical profiler, and optical interferometer. At the stage of cooling, after a sufficient intensity of heating, the second stage of damage took place — the cracking of the surface layer. The time before the start of this relatively fast process usually exceeded the time to achieve a DBTT by 1–4 orders of magnitude. © 2020 Elsevier B.V

Two-dimensional numerical simulation of tungsten melting in exposure to pulsed electron beam

Melting of the surface of tungsten exposed to a pulsed electron beam has been simulated numerically. Comparison of the experimentally measured at BETA facility time dependence of the radius of the molten region with the calculated data has shown that the surface cooling caused by evaporation has a significant effect on the temperature distribution and melting of the material at sufficiently high densities of the surface heating power. This result validates the created theoretical model of the tungsten melting and evaporation in exposure to a pulsed electron beam. The studied mechanism of the limitation of the surface temperature is different from the well-studied vapor shielding. The presented model is a step to correct interpretation of the erosion caused by the melt motion and splashing in exposure to the ITER-relevant pulsed heating by electron beam

On the mechanism of surface-parallel cracks formation under pulsed heat loads

This paper presents a model for calculating deformations and mechanical stresses around a crack normal to surface that appeared under pulsed heat load. The model was applied to calculation of stresses that may lead to formation of cracks along the surface, which are observed when tungsten is exposed to ITER-relevant heat load. It was found that such stresses might be not negligibly small in comparison with the ultimate tensile strength, and thus the appearance of cracks normal to the surface may leads to development of cracks parallel to the surface. The calculated deformation of the region around a crack is in good agreement with the experimental data. The deformations calculated can be a basis for experimental detection of formation of cracks normal and parallel to the surface. © 201

In-situ imaging of tungsten surface modification under ITER-like transient heat loads

Experimental research on behavior of rolled tungsten plates under intense transient heat loads generated by a powerful (a total power of up to 7 MW) long-pulse (0.1–0.3ms) electron beam with full irradiation area of 2 cm2 was carried out. Imaging of the sample by the fast CCD cameras in the NIR range and with illumination by the 532nm continuous-wave laser was applied for in-situ surface diagnostics during exposure. In these experiments tungsten plates were exposed to heat loads 0.5–1MJ/m2 with a heat flux factor (Fhf) close to and above the melting threshold of tungsten at initial room temperature. Crack formation and crack propagation under the surface layer were observed during multiple exposures. Overheated areas with excessive temperature over surrounding surface of about 500K were found on severely damaged samples more than 5ms after beam ending. The application of laser illumination enables to detect areas of intense tungsten melting near crack edges and crack intersections