The main European contribution to the ITER divertor project was the develop
ment of the divertor target with severe operating requirements such as peak
heat loads of up to 20 MW/m(2). This development involving EU laboratories
and industry included R&D on armour materials, thermo-hydraulics testing,
component manufacture, high heat flux testing, design and manufacture of pr
ototypes for later testing. The 4-year EU R&D effort achieved the demonstra
tion of the feasibility of a robust divertor target design based on carbon
and tungsten armour. This EU solution has eventually been adopted for the I
TER reference design and could be valid also for other ITER high heat flux
components such as limiters or baffles. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All
rights reserved.