Investigation of fusion reactor candidate materials erosion in plasma disruption simulation experiments

Abstract

The results of the investigations on new kinds of perspective materials for the high power units of fusion reactors in conditions of action simulating the expected plasma disruptions have been presented. Erosion, changes of the surface topography, the element and phase composition of the intermetallic alloys of a Ti–Al–V system and the type GR reactor graphite impregnated with an 50wt%Ti/50wt%Cu alloy under the action of hydrogen pulsed plasma fluxes with a maximum ion energy of 2 keV have been studied. The flux specific energy Q was equal to 100 J/cm 2, the pulse duration changed in the 15–20 μs range and the number of pulses N was from 3 to 30. It has been established that the heat-treated intermetallic alloy containing 15 at.% V has a high erosion stability depending on the number of irradiation pulses and has a minimum erosion coefficient of 0.2–0.3 μg/(J cm 2) in comparison with investigated alloys. The impregnated graphites are subjected to less erosion compared to that of the initial reactor graphite at a sufficiently small number of irradiation pulses ( N⩽15).