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Extensive high heat flux cycling testing of pre-series targets was performed in the neutral beam facility GLADIS to establish the industrial process for the manufacturing of 890 targets, which will be needed for the installation of the WENDELSTEIN 7-X divertor. The targets are manufactured of flat tiles of CFC NB31 as plasma facing material bonded by an Active Metal Casting copper interlayer onto a water-cooled CuCrZr structure. Based on the results of the 3D thermo-mechanical FEM analysis of the CFC/Cu interface, an additional set of 17 full-scale pre-series elements including three design variations was manufactured by PLANSEE SE. The insertion of an additional plastically compliant copper interlayer between the cooling structure and the Active Metal Casting interlayer showed the best results. No critical tile detachment was observed during >5000 cycles at 10 MW/m². These results demonstrated the sufficient life time of the component for the expected heat load in operation.

The high heat flux (HHF) testing of WENDELSTEIN 7-X pre-series target elements is an indispensable step in the qualification of the manufacturing process. A set of 20 full scale pre-series elements was manufactured by PLANSEE SE to validate the materials and manufacturing technologies prior to the start of the series production.The HHF tests were performed in the ion beam test facility GLADIS. All actively water-cooled elements were tested for about 100 cycles at 10 MW/m 2 (10-15 s pulse duration). Several elements were loaded with even higher cycle numbers (up to 1000) and heat loads up to 24 MW/m 2 . Hot spots were, observed at the edges of several tiles during the HHF tests indicating local bonding problems of the CFC.The thermo-mechanical behaviour under HHF loading has been evaluated and compared to the FEM predictions. The measured temperatures and strains confirm the chosen FEM approach. This allows a component optimisation to achieve a successful series production of the W7-X divertor target elements.