Facility for high-heat flux testing of irradiated fusion materials and components using infrared plasma arc lamps

A new high-heat flux testing (HHFT) facility using water-wall stabilized high-power high-pressure argon plasma arc lamps (PALs) has been developed for fusion applications. It can accommodate irradiated plasma facing component materials and sub-size mock-up divertor components. Two PALs currently available at Oak Ridge National Laboratory can provide maximum incident heat fluxes of 4.2 and 27 MW m^-2, which are prototypic of fusion steady state heat flux conditions, over a heated area of 9 × 12 and 1 × 10 cm ², respectively. The use of PAL permits the heat source to be environmentally separated from the components of the test chamber, simplifying the design to accommodate safe testing of low-level irradiated articles and materials under high-heat flux. Issues related to the operation and temperature measurements during testing of tungsten samples are presented and discussed. The relative advantages and disadvantages of this photon-based HHFT facility are compared to existing e-beam and particle beam facilities used for similar purposes.