The Use of Tungsten in Fusion Reactors: A Review of the Hydrogen Retention and Migration Properties

Causet, Rion A.; Venhaus, Thomas J.

doi:10.1238/physica.topical.094a00009

Cited by 119 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 23 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…References and discussions of these studies can be found in reviews [375,[426][427][428]. Here we present selected highlights from these studies which are relevant to H retention in Be and W in a fusion plasma environment.…”

Section: Hydrogen Retention In Be and Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Plasma-material interactions in current tokamaks and their implications for next step fusion reactors

et al. 2001

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The major increase in discharge duration and plasma energy in a next step DT fusion reactor will give rise to important plasma-material effects that will critically influence its operation, safety and performance. Erosion will increase to a scale of several centimetres from being barely measurable at a micron scale in today's tokamaks. Tritium co-deposited with carbon will strongly affect the operation of machines with carbon plasma facing components. Controlling plasma-wall interactions is critical to achieving high performance in present day tokamaks, and this is likely to continue to be the case in the approach to practical fusion reactors. Recognition of the important consequences of these phenomena stimulated an internationally co-ordinated effort in the field of plasma-surface interactions supporting the Engineering Design Activities of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project (ITER), and significant progress has been made in better understanding these issues. The paper reviews the underlying physical processes and the existing experimental database of plasma-material interactions both in tokamaks and laboratory simulation facilities for conditions of direct relevance to next step fusion reactors. Two main topical groups of interaction are considered: (i) erosion/redeposition from plasma sputtering and disruptions, including dust and flake generation and (ii) tritium retention and removal. The use of modelling tools to interpret the experimental results and make projections for conditions expected in future devices is explained. Outstanding technical issues and specific recommendations on potential R&D avenues for their resolution are presented.

show abstract

Section: Hydrogen Retention In Be and Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Two basic parameters for understanding H retention are the hydrogen diffusivity and solubility. Studies of solubility and diffusivity are reviewed in [428,429]. Fig.…”

Section: Hydrogen Retention In Be and Wmentioning

confidence: 99%

Plasma-material interactions in current tokamaks and their implications for next step fusion reactors

et al. 2001

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Much of these attractive features emanate from the strong bonding between 5d electrons, which results in remarkably high cohesive energy (∼ 8.9 eV/atom [1]). However, a fundamental concern of using W for such applications is the high ductile to brittle transition temperature (DBTT) and its dependence on the microstructure and impurity concentrations [2][3][4][5][6]. Experiments have revealed that the DBTT for single-crystalline tungsten can be as low as -196 • C [7], whereas poly-crystalline samples can remain brittle up to about 800 • C [8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intergranular fracture of tungsten containing phosphorus impurities: A first principles investigation

Olsson

Blomqvist

2017

Computational Materials Science

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the present work we have studied the influence of phosphorus impurities on the grain boundary strength of tungsten by means of quantum mechanical calculations based on density functional theory. As model grain boundary we consider the Σ5(310)[001] high angle configuration. The results show that by the introduction of a clean (i.e. impurity free) grain boundary in the bulk, the strength and peak stress of the cohesive zone are reduced and they are further reduced by the introduction of impurities. This effect can be attributed to the formation of polar bonds between W and P, which leads to a weakening of the interface. Based on a thermodynamic analysis of the cohesive zone during the straining we find that diffusion of impurities may occur to retain thermodynamic equilibrium for constant chemical potential. This contributes to the gradual reduction of the peak stress related to fracture, which can contribute to diffusion driven delayed cracking, even when subjected to static loads.

show abstract

“…Tungsten (W), because of its high melting point, thermal conductivity, and sputtering resistance, is one of the most promising candidates of plasma facing materials (PFM) for future fusion reactors such as International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) [1,2]. During the operation of the fusion reactor, W will be exposed to the low-energy (<100 eV), high-flux (>10 24 /m 2 s) hydrogen (H) and helium plasma irradiation, as well as a continuous bombardment of 14.1 MeV neutrons escaped from nuclear fusion reactions [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Object Kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of hydrogen clustering behaviour with vacancies in tungsten

Meng

Wang

et al. 2019

Journal of Nuclear Materials

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We apply the Object Kinetic Monte Carlo method to simulate the hydrogen (H) clustering behaviour with large vacancy (V) clusters in tungsten. The main advantage of this method is to consider the temperature effects, large V clusters, and long-time evolution. It is thus a very useful tool to study the microstructure evolution of defects in irradiated materials covering from atomic scale to mesoscale. Simulation results show that the number of trapped H atoms by V and V clusters decreases with the increase of temperature. This is expected, because the de-trapping ability of H atoms increases when the temperature is increased. With the correction of the zero-point-energy in calculating binding energies, the present results show that the number of H atoms trapped by monovacancy decreases for all studied temperatures. We also found that the trapping ability of V clusters for H decreases with the increase of the sizes of V clusters, independent on temperature. The H concentration can largely affect the clustering behaviour of H m V n. When the H saturation concentration is reached, the clustering behaviour of H m V n is mainly determined by the sizes of V clusters.

show abstract

The Use of Tungsten in Fusion Reactors: A Review of the Hydrogen Retention and Migration Properties

Cited by 119 publications

References 23 publications

Plasma-material interactions in current tokamaks and their implications for next step fusion reactors

Plasma-material interactions in current tokamaks and their implications for next step fusion reactors

Intergranular fracture of tungsten containing phosphorus impurities: A first principles investigation

Object Kinetic Monte Carlo simulation of hydrogen clustering behaviour with vacancies in tungsten

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About