Abstract
A new high-heat flux testing facility using water-wall stabilized high-power high-pressure argon Plasma Arc Lamps (PALs) has been developed for fusion applications. It can handle irradiated plasma facing component materials and mock-up divertor components. Two PALs currently available at ORNL can provide maximum incident heat fluxes of 4.2 and 27 MW/m2 over a heated area of 9x12 and 1x10 cm2, respectively, which are fusion-prototypical steady state heat flux conditions. The facility will be described and the main differences between the photon-based high-heat flux testing facilities, such as PALs, and the e-beam and particle beam facilities more commonly used for fusion HHF testing are discussed. The components of the test chamber were designed to accommodate radiation safety and materials compatibility requirements posed by high-temperature exposure of low levels irradiated tungsten articles. Issues related to the operation and temperature measurements during testing are presented and discussed.
