Effects of plasma disruption events on ITER first wall materials

Abstract

In ITER, plasma disruption events may occur producing large fast thermal transients on plasma facing materials. Particularly important for the integrity of the first wall (FW) are relatively ‘long’ duration off-normal events such as plasma vertical displacement events (VDE) and runaway electrons (RE). An analytical methodology has been developed to specifically assess the effect of these events on FW plasma facing materials. For the typical energy densities and event duration expected for the primary and baffle FW, some melting and evaporation of the FW armor will occur without the beneficial effect of vapor shielding, and the metallic heat sink may also be damaged due to over-heating. The method is able to calculate the amount of melted and evaporated material, taking into account the evolution of the evaporated and melted layer and to evaluate possible effects of local temporary loss of cooling. The method has been used to analyze the effects of VDE and RE events for ITER, to study recent disruption simulation experiments and to benchmark experimental and analytical results.