Thermomechanical behavior of actively cooled, brazed divertor components under cyclic high heat flux loads

Abstract

Actively cooled divertor mock-ups consisting of various low- Z armor tiles brazed to refractory metal heat sinks were tested in the electron beam test facility at Jülich. Screening and thermal cycling tests were perfomed on the mock-ups to estimate the overall thermal performance under cyclic high heat flux (HHF) loadings. By detecting the temperature of the armor surface and the braze layer, it was possible to assess the heat removal capability and the accumulation of interfacial damage. Microstructures were investigated to elucidate the degradation of the joints. Finite element analyses are carried out for the simulated HHF test conditions. Temperature fields and thermal stresses are calculated for a typical divertor module. The nature of thermomechanical behavior of the divertor mock-ups under cyclic HHF loadings is discussed.