5-9 September 2016
Prague Congress Centre
Europe/Prague timezone

I4.1 European-WP development on functional materials for diagnostics and H&CD systems in future fusion reactors

8 Sep 2016, 08:30
40m
Forum Hall 2nd floor (Prague Congress Centre)

Forum Hall 2nd floor

Prague Congress Centre

5. května 65, Prague, Czech Republic
Board: 1

Speaker

Rafael Vila (Fusion Materials Unit)

Description

With start of EUROfusion Materials-WP in 2014, functional materials (FM) have been included as a new branch. Their main scopes are issues of optical and dielectric materials for DEMO applications. R&D of these materials are, in particular, essential for Diagnostics and Heating and Current Drive (H&CD) systems that  must provide critical services such as machine control, protection, performance evaluation and extensive measurement capability. Therefore, a need was identified to study this complete group of materials with very specific requirements. It includes components and materials related such as, optical components (mirrors, lenses, fibres), insulators and high frequency windows. They will also be subjected to an intense radiation field from the ‘burning’ plasma and, therefore, require radiation resistance. Previous studies mainly focus on ITER conditions but they must survive extended periods in the more hostile environment of DEMO and future power plants. The dose received by FM will be orders of magnitude lower than for plasma facing structural materials, however, their sensitivity to radiation is also much higher (even at doses < 10-3-3 dpa). Draft designs for the EU-DEMO highlighted several R&D issues requiring evaluation of long-term fluence or dose-related degradation of the required properties, such as aggregation and segregation of radiation-induced-defects and impurities. The workprogramme on FM established in EUROfusion will be presented highlighting the different needs addressed above: (i) the group of present material candidates, for which radiation data exist but not at DEMO relevant fluences; (ii) groups of materials (and respective requirements for components), where relevant information does not exist even at low-medium doses. Long-term research activities on FM have been initiated in parallel with DEMO design activities. The types of materials, aims and radiation tests to be performed are reviewed. In particular, for the diagnostics and H&CD materials, in situ irradiation testing is found to be essential.

Co-authors

Eberhard Diegele (PMU, EUROfusion, Garching, Germany) Michael Rieth (IAM-AWP, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany) Rafael Vila (Fusion Materials Unit, CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain)

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