Ma. Bourham et Jg. Gilligan, EROSION OF PLASMA-FACING COMPONENTS UNDER SIMULATED DISRUPTION-LIKE CONDITIONS USING AN ELECTROTHERMAL PLASMA GUN, Fusion technology, 26(3), 1994, pp. 517-521
The NCSU electrothermal plasma gun, SIRENS, has been used to evaluate
the erosion behavior of plasma-facing components under conditions simu
lating plasma disruption in tokamaks. The device is capable of produci
ng conditions with heat fluence up to 10 MJ/m(2) over 0.1 and 0.25 ms
pulse duration. In future large tokamaks, plasma-facing components are
expected to receive heat fluxes during a plasma disruption, which may
exceed 100 GW/m(2) over 0.01-5 ms. The vapor, which is developed at t
he ablating surface, absorbs a fraction of the incoming plasma energy.
Candidate plasma-facing materials have been exposed to heat fluxes in
the SIRENS facility (primarily from a blackbody spectrum photons), up
to 100 GW/m(2) over 0.1-0.25 ms. The vapor shielding effect has been
demonstrated and analyzed for the divertor candidate materials.