• Energy Research

Future fusion reactors like ITER and DEMO will have all-tungsten (W) walls and long pulses. These features will make wall conditioning more difficult than in most of the existing devices. The W Environment Steady-state Tokamak (WEST) is one of the few long pulse (364 s) fusion devices with actively cooled W plasma-facing components in the world. WEST is a unique test bed to study impurity migration and plasma density control via reactor relevant wall conditioning techniques. The phase II of WEST operations began in 2022, after the installation of a new lower divertor, now entirely equipped with actively cooled, ITER grade, W monoblocks. After pump down, we baked WEST between 90 °C and 170 °C for ∼2 weeks. After 82.5 h at 90 °C and 33 h at 170 °C, vacuum conditions were stable with a vessel pressure of 6x10-5 Pa and mass spectra dominated by H2 molecules. While at 170 °C, we performed ∼40 h of D2 glow discharge cleaning (GDC) and ∼5 h of glow discharge boronization (GDB), using a 15 %-85 % B2D6-He mix and a total boron mass of ∼12 g. This was the very first GDB at such high temperature for WEST. The whole wall conditioning sequence led to a ∼10 times reduction of the H2O signal as well as to a ∼3 times reduction of the O2 signal, according to mass spectra. Once back to 70 °C, the vessel pressure was 5.5x10-6 Pa and plasma restart was seamless with ∼30 s cumulated over the very first 5 pulses and an Ohmic radiated power fraction Frad = 0.6, showing successful conditioning of the new ITER grade divertor. The effect of the first, ‘hot’ GDB faded with a characteristic cumulative injected energy of 2.45 GJ and saturation towards Frad ∼0.8. After 1.4 h and 7.5 GJ of cumulative plasma time and injected energy, we carried out a second GDB, this time at 70 °C. This ‘cold’ GDB initially led to a much lower Ohmic Frad = 0.3–0.4 but the effect lasted ∼7 times less, with a characteristic cumulative injected energy of 0.37 GJ. At the end of the campaign, we cumulated ∼3h and ∼30 GJ through repetitive, minute long pulses without any boronization. Throughout this 4-weeks-long experiment, Frad in the 4 MW heating phase evolved only marginally (from 0.5 to 0.55). This increase is mostly due to the build-up of re/co-deposited layers on both lower divertor targets.

Future fusion reactors like ITER and DEMO will have all-tungsten (W) walls and long pulses. These features will make wall conditioning more difficult than in most of the existing devices. The W Environment Steady-state Tokamak (WEST) is one of the few long pulse (364 s) fusion devices with actively cooled W plasma-facing components in the world. WEST is a unique test bed to study impurity migration and plasma density control via reactor relevant wall conditioning techniques. The phase II of WEST operations began in 2022, after the installation of a new lower divertor, now entirely equipped with actively cooled, ITER grade, W monoblocks. After pump down, we baked WEST between 90 °C and 170 °C for ∼2 weeks. After 82.5 h at 90 °C and 33 h at 170 °C, vacuum conditions were stable with a vessel pressure of 6x10-5 Pa and mass spectra dominated by H2 molecules. While at 170 °C, we performed ∼40 h of D2 glow discharge cleaning (GDC) and ∼5 h of glow discharge boronization (GDB), using a 15 %-85 % B2D6-He mix and a total boron mass of ∼12 g. This was the very first GDB at such high temperature for WEST. The whole wall conditioning sequence led to a ∼10 times reduction of the H2O signal as well as to a ∼3 times reduction of the O2 signal, according to mass spectra. Once back to 70 °C, the vessel pressure was 5.5x10-6 Pa and plasma restart was seamless with ∼30 s cumulated over the very first 5 pulses and an Ohmic radiated power fraction Frad = 0.6, showing successful conditioning of the new ITER grade divertor. The effect of the first, ‘hot’ GDB faded with a characteristic cumulative injected energy of 2.45 GJ and saturation towards Frad ∼0.8. After 1.4 h and 7.5 GJ of cumulative plasma time and injected energy, we carried out a second GDB, this time at 70 °C. This ‘cold’ GDB initially led to a much lower Ohmic Frad = 0.3–0.4 but the effect lasted ∼7 times less, with a characteristic cumulative injected energy of 0.37 GJ. At the end of the campaign, we cumulated ∼3h and ∼30 GJ through repetitive, minute long pulses without any boronization. Throughout this 4-weeks-long experiment, Frad in the 4 MW heating phase evolved only marginally (from 0.5 to 0.55). This increase is mostly due to the build-up of re/co-deposited layers on both lower divertor targets.

Abstract The influence of upstream ion temperature in the scrape-off layer (SOL) on the tungsten (W) sputtering in the divertor is studied in the WEST tokamak. For an almost constant power into the SOL, the upstream ion temperature and its ratio over the electron temperature gradually increase with the decrease of electron density in the SOL. This increment is observed to enhance the energy transfer from ions to electrons. This increases the downstream electron temperature and by coupling of electrons and ions, the impact energy of ions causing W sputtering in the divertor. This enhancement mechanism may become crucial to sputtering the W material for high upstream T i/T e ratio since the impact energy of ions in the divertor would increase accordingly.

Abstract The influence of upstream ion temperature in the scrape-off layer (SOL) on the tungsten (W) sputtering in the divertor is studied in the WEST tokamak. For an almost constant power into the SOL, the upstream ion temperature and its ratio over the electron temperature gradually increase with the decrease of electron density in the SOL. This increment is observed to enhance the energy transfer from ions to electrons. This increases the downstream electron temperature and by coupling of electrons and ions, the impact energy of ions causing W sputtering in the divertor. This enhancement mechanism may become crucial to sputtering the W material for high upstream T i/T e ratio since the impact energy of ions in the divertor would increase accordingly.

Nuclear materials and energy 38, 101587 - (2024). doi:10.1016/j.nme.2024.101587 Published by Elsevier, Amsterdam [u.a.]

Nuclear materials and energy 38, 101587 - (2024). doi:10.1016/j.nme.2024.101587 Published by Elsevier, Amsterdam [u.a.]