果冻传媒

The heat shields in a divertor are exposed to intense plasma fluxes (~10 MW/m2, comparable to spacecraft re-entry), and to millisecond transients during plasma disruptions (~80 GW/m2). On top of that the divertor lives a nuclear environment, under constant neutron bombardment. Liquid metal heat shields are particularly suited for this challenge. Our group investigates multiple facets of this technology. Firstly, we experimentally and numerically investigate the power handling capacity. Which involves evaporative and radiative processes of the liquid metal in the plasma. This is done in particular on the Magnum-PSI device located at DIFFER, which replicates the conditions on the reactor wall. Secondly, we develop new designs, and investigate their performance. For example, we developed a 3D-printed tungsten substrate to hold the liquid metal, which allowed for optimizing its performance. The primary focus of the group, for the near future, is the development and testing of realistic shield concept for the European DEMO reactor.