Influence of CFC quality on the performance of TS limiter elements under cyclic heat loading

For the fabrication of 600 actively cooled finger elements for the Tore Supra pump limiter in operation since 2001 it was necessary to rely on two different batches of the CFC N11 grade (Carbon Fibre reinforced Composite) namely so-called SEP N11-92 (fabricated in 1992) and N11-98 (fabricated in 1998). It came out during the incoming inspection of the fingers that the bonding quality was degraded for the 98-batch so that an important number of tiles had to be repaired. Due to the coming upgrade of the Tore Supra heating system, two high heat flux test campaigns were performed on the neutral beam GLADIS facility (IPP Garching, Germany) including micro-structural analyses in order to evaluate, compare and understand the fatigue behaviour of 92- and 98-batch finger elements.