Speaker
Description
Power and particle handling in the plasma edge region is one of the key issues, affecting the successful operation of a steady state magnetic fusion power reactor. Tungsten has widely been used for plasma-facing components in existing fusion experiments and is envisaged to be employed for the ITER divertor, perhaps with seeded impurity for radiation detachment. Unfortunately, conventionally available tungsten is known to suffer from cracking due to its exceptionally high DBTT (for the Ductile-Brittle Transition Temperature). Most recently, nonetheless, efforts have been devoted to develop ductile tungsten and also W-W composite materials.
To resolve the mechanical property issue with solid divertor materials, over the past decade the use of liquid metals has been proposed and implemented in a number of medium-sized confinement devices. Experimental data so far have been encouraging with improved confinement performance. However, there are tremendous uncertainties and yet-to-be explored nature about the behavior of free-surface liquids and vapors, interacting with the edge plasma, particularly under off-normal conditions such as disruption. Fluid dynamics simulation has begun only recently to understand the effect of liquid convection on hydrogen recycling, for example.
Presented in this paper is a review of the recent work on the interactions between plasmas and liquid metals such as molten lithium, the most widely used for plasma-facing components in magnetic fusion experiments, and a future perspective of the application of liquid metals for future fusion power reactors.
| Eligible for student paper award? | No |
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