Investigations of casetellated structures for ITER: the effect of castellation shaping and alignment on fuel retention and impurity deposition in gaps

Castellation will be used in divertor and first wall components to provide thermo-mechanical stability of ITER. Radioactive fuel may be stored in the gaps of castellated structures representing a safety issue for ITER. Tungsten castellated structures with different shapes were exposed in TEXTOR to investigate the impact of cell shaping on impurity transport and fuel deposition in the gaps. After exposure a significant intermixing of tungsten was detected in carbon deposits in the gaps reaching 70 at.% of W in the deposited layer. This will provide difficulties in cleaning the gaps in ITER. Poloidal gaps of shaped cells contained a factor or 3 less deuterium than those of rectangular cells, the carbon deposition exhibited only marginal advantages of a new geometry. Poloidal and toroidal gaps contained comparable amount of C and D. Significant deposition at the bottom of gaps was measured which could only partly be reproduced by modeling. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved