Six-layered W-TiC/Cu functionally graded materials were fabricated by resistance sintering under ultra-high pressure and exposed in the edge plasma of HT-7 tokamak. Microstruc- ture morphologies show that the TiC particles distribute homogeneously in the W matrix, strength- ening the grain boundary, while gradient layers provide a good compositional transition from W- TiC to Cu. After about 360 shots in the HT-7 tokamak, clear surface modification can be observed after plasma exposure, and the addition of nano TiC particles is beneficial to the improvement of plasma loads resistance of W.
Thermo-mechanical simulation of the vacuum plasma spraying tungsten （VPS-W） coating on the actively cooled CuCrZr substrate under the relevant quasi-stationary heat load and transient heat flux for tokamak device, is conducted by finite element analysis （FEA）. It is shown that the failure of copper softening is likely to occur at the W/Cu compliant interlayer under a typical quasi-stationary heat load and the surface failure of plastic yield damage to occur at the surface edge under a transient heat flux. In addition, the critical transient heat flux for melting is approximately 0.75 MJ/m2 for about 0.5 ms. All these results are useful for the design of the plasma facing components （PFCs） and the plasma operation in the future.
Chemical vapor deposition-tungsten （CVD-W） coating covering the surface of the plasma facing component （PFC） is an effective method to implement the tungsten material as plasma facing material （PFM） in fusion devices. Residual thermal stress in CVD-W coating due to thermal mismatch between coating and substrate was successfully simulated by using a finite element method （ANSYS 10.0 code）. The deposition parametric effects, i.e., coating thickness and deposition temperature, and interlayer were investigated to get a description of the residual thermal stress in the CVD-W coating-substrate system. And the influence of the substrate materials on the generation of residual thermal stress in the CVD-W coating was analyzed with respect to the CVD-W coating application as PFM. This analysis is beneficial for the preparation and application of CVD-W coating.
The stainless steel （SS） first mirror pre-exposed in the deposition-dominated envi- ronment of the HT-7 tokamak was cleaned in the newly built radio frequency （RF） magnetron sputtering plasma device. The deposition layer on the FM surface formed during the exposure was successfully removed by argon plasma with a RF power of about 80 W and a gas pressure of 0.087 Pa for 30 min. The total reflectivity of the mirrors was recovered up to 90% in the wavelength range of 300-800 nm, while the diffuse reflectivity showed a little increase, which was attributed to the increase of surface roughness in sputtering, and residual contaminants. The FMs made from single crystal materials could help to achieve a desired recovery of specular reflectivity in the future.
In order to investigate the effect of aperture geometry on deposition mitigation, stainless steel （SS） first mirrors （FMs） were fixed on the holders of protective aperture geometry with different depth-diameter ratios （DDRs） and exposed in the deposition dominated environment of EAST. A baffle was used during the wall conditioning. The surface properties and reflectivity of the FMs were characterized before and after exposure. It is shown that using aperture geometry and a baffle can effectively mitigate the impurities deposition. The degradation of the surface and specular reflectivity of the FMs is reduced with the increase of DDRs in the range of 0 to 2. The main contaminated elements in a low-Z and high-Z mixed wall materials environment were still carbon and oxygen.
Tests of the candidate plasma facing materials（PFMs） used in experimental fusion devices are essential due to the direct influence of in-situ plasma loading.A type of ultrafine grained（UFG） tungsten sintered by resistance sintering under ultra-high pressure（RSUHP） method has been exposed in the edge plasma of the HT-7 tokamak to investigate its performance under plasma loading.Under cychc edge plasma loading,the UFG tungsten develops both macro and micro cracks.The macro cracks are attributed to the low temperature brittleness of the tungsten material itself,while the micro cracks are generated from local intense power flux deposition.
