Interaction of high temperature plasma flowing from long cusp trap with solid materials.

Process of interaction of intense plasma fluxes up to 10 MW/cm(2) with soli d targets was studied experimentally. It was shown that a dense plasma laye r arises near target surface and protects the target from direct effect of an incoming high temperature plasma. Spatial distribution and temporal beha vior of the shielding layer depend on the target materials. For a high Z ma terials (tungsten, cropper, stainless steel) dense plasma layer is localize d near the surface during all time of the interaction. For a low Z material s (graphite, boron nitrid, plexiglass, aluminium) low dense plasma cloud -" corona" rapidly expands toward incoming plasma flow along the magnetic fiel d lines. The experiments demonstrated effective shielding of the different materials surface from excessive evaporation. Bulk energy of incoming plasm a is converted into SXR radiation in near surface layer for a high Z materi als and, partially, into target plasma heating for a low Z materials. Measu red parameters of plasma shield are used as a benchmark in developing numer ical codes to predict a real damage for ITER divertor plates due to hard di sruptions.