Testing of high heat flux components manufactured by ENEA for ITER divertor

ENEA is involved in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) R&D activities and in particular in the manufacturing of high heat flux plasma-facing components, such as the divertor targets. During the last years ENEA has manufactured actively cooled mock-ups by using different technologies, namely brazing, diffusion bonding and HIPping. A new manufacturing process that combines two main techniques PBC (Pre-Brazed Casting) and the HRP (Hot Radial Pressing) has been set up and widely tested.A full monoblock medium scale vertical target, having a straight CFC armoured part and a curved W armoured part, was manufactured using this process.The ultrasonic method was used for the non-destructive examinations performed during the manufacturing of the component, from the monoblock preparation up to the final mock-up assembling. The component was also examined by thermography on SATIR facility (CEA, France), afterwards it was thermal fatigue tested at FE200 (200 kW electron beam facility, CEA/AREVA France).The successful results of the thermal fatigue testing performed according the ITER requirements (10 MW/m², 3000 cycles of 10 s on both CFC and W part, then 20/15 MW/m², 2000 cycles of 10 s on CFC/W part, respectively) have confirmed that the developed process can be considerate a candidate for the manufacturing of monoblock divertor components. Furthermore, a 35-MW/m² Critical Heat Flux was measured at relevant thermal–hydraulics conditions at the end of the testing campaign.This paper reports the manufacturing route, the thermal fatigue testing results, the pre and post non-destructive examination and the destructive examination performed on the ITER vertical target medium scale mock-up.These activities were performed in the frame of EFDA contracts (04-1218 with CEA, 93-851 JN with AREVA and 03-1054 with ENEA).