Manufacturing and testing of reference samples for the definition of acceptance criteria for the ITER divertor

The most critical part of a high heat flux (HHF) plasma facing component (PFC) is the armour to heat sink joint. erimental study was launched by EFDA in order to define the acceptance criteria to be used for the procurements of the ITER Divertor PFCs. s involved in the European International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) R&D activities and together with Ansaldo Ricerche S.p.A. has manufactured several PFCs mock-ups using the Hot Radial Pressing and Pre-Brazed Casting technologies. ing to the technical specifications issued by EFDA, ENEA and Ansaldo have collaborated to manufacture half of the samples with calibrated artificial defects required for this experimental study. manufacturing, the samples were examined by ultrasonic and SATIR non-destructive examination (NDE) methods in order to confirm the size and position of the artificial defects. ticular, it was concluded that defects are detectable with these NDE techniques and they finally gave indication about the threshold of propagation during high heat flux experiments relevant with heat fluxes expected in ITER Divertor. aper reports the manufacturing procedure used to obtain the required calibrated artificial defects in the CFC and W armoured samples as well as the NDE results and the thermal high heat flux results.