Suppression of cavitation in melted tungsten by doping with lanthanum oxide

Abstract

Melting and boiling behaviour of pure tungsten and 1 wt% lanthanum-oxide-doped tungsten (WL10) are investigated, focusing on the material selection with respect to material loss induced by cavitation. Melting experiments under high heat loads are carried out in the high heat flux facility GLADIS. Pulsed hydrogen neutral beams with heat flux of 10 and 23 MW m−2 are applied onto the adiabatically loaded samples for intense surface melting. Melt layer of the two tungsten grades exhibit different microstructure characteristics. Substantive voids owning to cavitation in the liquid phase are observed in pure W and lead to porous resolidified material. However, little cavitation bubbles can be found in the dense resolidified layer of WL10. In order to find out the gaseous sources, vapour collection is performed and the components are subsequently detected. Based on the observations and analyses, the microstructure evolutions corresponding to melting and vapourization behaviour of the two tungsten grades are tentatively described, and furthermore, the underlying mechanisms of cavitation in pure W and its suppression in WL10 are discussed.