Characterization and damaging law of CFC for high heat flux actively cooled plasma facing components

Abstract

The carbon fiber reinforced carbon composite (CFC) Sepcarb N11 has been used in the Tore Supra (TS) tokamak (Cadarache, France) as armour material for the plasma facing components. For the fabrication of the Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) divertor (Greifswald, Germany), the NB31 material was chosen. For the fabrication of the ITER divertor, two potential CFC candidates are the NB31 and NB41 materials. In the case of Tore Supra, defects such as microcracks or debonding were found at the interface between CFC tile and copper heat sink. A mechanical characterization of the behaviour of N11 and NB31 was undertaken, allowing the identification of a damage model and finite element calculations both for flat tiles (TS and W7-X) and monoblock (ITER) armours. The mechanical responses of these CFC materials were found almost linear under on-axis tensile tests but highly nonlinear under shear tests or off-axis tensile tests. As a consequence, damage develops within the high shear-stress zones.