Predicting the performance of tungsten in a fusion environment: a literature review

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1 Diagram showing geometry of a toroidal magnetic field with a divertor. Source: Eurofusion

2 Image of JET with tungsten divertor and beryllium first wall. Source: Eurofusion

3 Evolution of damage cascades in Tungsten at 5 ps after collision (left) and after 30 ps (right) showing vacancy and interstitial distributions¹⁷

4 TEM images of voids in tungsten (taken from Ferroni et al.²⁷)

Table 1. Elemental composition of tungsten after five years in a fusion power plant²⁸

	Concentration (at.-%)
Tungsten	94.0
Rhenium	3.8
Osmium	1.4
Tantalum	0.8
Helium	34 appm
Hydrogen	76 appm

5 Phase diagram and Helmholtz free energy curves for W–Re (taken from Ekman et al.³⁰)

6 Fracture testing of micro-cantilever in tungsten (taken from Armstronget al.³³)

7 Neutron spectra for a fusion power plant and current fission reactors (taken from Gilbert et al.³⁷)

8 TEM micrograph showing both acicular and circular precipitates formed by neutron irradiation of W–11Re at 1173 K⁴¹

9 TEM micrographs showing voids in tungsten irradiated at a 0.17 dpa at 673 K, b 0.96 dpa at 701 K, c 0.40 dpa at 1013 K andd 1.54 dpa at 1023 K⁵¹

10 TEM micrographs showing pure tungsten after irradiation to 0.98 dpa at 1073 K: a diffraction pattern from (001), b bright-field image, and c and d dark-field images of precipitates⁴⁶

11 Increase in hardness of W–x Re with increase neutron dose across a range of temperatures, increasing rhenium content increases the rate of hardening due to precipitate formation. Reproduced with data from Tanno et al.⁴⁵ and He et al.⁵⁵

12 TEM micrographs showing steady formation and growth of interstitial loops over 0.3 s and sudden appearance of vacancy loops²¹

13 Hardening of tungsten and tungsten alloys under self-ion irradiation^66,68

14 Tungsten fuzz formed by exposure to He containing plasma on PISCES B⁷²

15 Hardness measurements from tungsten irradiated with self-ions to 0.02 dpa (LDW) or 0.25 dpa (HDW) and He to 300 appm (LDHe) or 3000 appm (HDHe)⁸⁰

16 Hardness measurements comparing ion and neutron irradiation for pure tungsten^45,55,66

17 Hardness measurements comparing ion and neutron irradiation for W– 5% Re^45,55,66

Table 2. Hardness measurements of W and W–5% Re before irradiation^66,86

	Author	Fabrication	Hardness/GPa
Tungsten	Armstrong	Plansee	7.62
Tungsten	He/Tanno	Arc Melted and Annealed	3.72
W–5% Re	Armstrong	Arc Melted and Annealed	6.45
W–5% Re	He/Tanno	Arc Melted and Annealed	3.23

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