Pre-conceptual design activities for the materials plasma exposure experiment

Journal Article · Thu Jan 07 00:00:00 EST 2016 · Fusion Engineering and Design

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2015.10.020· OSTI ID:1394524

Lumsdaine, Arnold ^[1]; Rapp, Juergen ^[1]; Varma, Venugopal ^[1]; Bjorholm, Thomas ^[1]; Bradley, Craig ^[1]; Caughman, John ^[1]; Duckworth, Robert ^[1]; Goulding, Richard ^[1]; Graves, Van ^[1]; Giuliano, Dominic ^[1]; Lessard, Timothy ^[1]; McGinnis, Dean ^[1]; Meitner, Steven ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

The development of next step fusion facilities such as DEMO or a Fusion Nuclear Science Facility (FNSF) requires first closing technology gaps in a few critical areas. Understanding the material-plasma interface is necessary to enable the development of divertors for long-pulse plasma facilities. A pre-conceptual design for a proposed steady-state linear plasma device, the Materials Plasma Exposure Experiment (MPEX), is underway. A helicon plasma source along with ion cyclotron and electron Bernstein wave heating systems will produce ITER divertor relevant plasma conditions with steady-state parallel heat fluxes of up to 40 MW/m² with ion fluxes up to 10²⁴/m² s on target. Current plans are for the device to use superconducting magnets to produce 1–2 T fields. As a steady-state device, active cooling will be required for components that interact with the plasma (targets, limiters, etc.), as well as for other plasma facing components (transport regions, vacuum tanks, diagnostic ports). Design concepts for the vacuum system, the cooling system, and the plasma heating systems have been completed. The device will include the capability for handling samples that have been neutron irradiated in order to consider the multivariate effects of neutrons, plasma, and high heat-flux on the microstructure of divertor candidate materials. A vacuum cask, which can be disconnected from the high field environment in order to perform in-vacuo diagnosis of the surface evolution is also planned for the facility.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1394524
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1397337
• Journal Information: Fusion Engineering and Design, Vol. 109-111, Issue PB; ISSN 0920-3796
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
plasma facing components
plasma-material interactions
R&D facilities
linear plasma experiments