Simulation Study on Effects of Chemically Eroded Methane and Ethylene Molecules on Carbon Impurity Transport and Net Erosion of Carbon Materials

R. Kawakami

Faculty of Engineering, The University of Tokushima

C material will be used as a plasma facing material of the divertor target plates in ITER. The use comes from a great advantage that C material has a high thermal shock resistance. For the use, however, there is a crucial issue: chemical erosion of the material by the D plasma exposure occurs easily, which indicates a significant release of hydrocarbons such as CD4 and C2D4 to the core plasmas [1]. From two viewpoints of contamination of the core plasmas and net erosion of the material, how the chemically eroded hydrocarbons change the local C impurity transport and the resultant net erosion needs to be investigated enough.
In this study, effects of chemically eroded CD4 and C2D4 molecules on local penetrations of C+, C2+ and C3+ impurities to the core plasma have been investigated using a Monte-Carlo simulation. In the simulation, CD4 and C2D4 reaction rate coefficients for e- impact ionization, dissociation, dissociative recombination and D+ impact charge transfer are used [2, 3]. The result has been compared with experimental data [4]. Also, the effects on the net erosion rates for different plasma parameters and for the designed ITER divertor plasma condition [5] have been investigated. The paper describes and discusses how the local C impurity penetrations and the net erosion rates are changed under the influence of the chemically eroded molecules.
The calculated C1+ emission profile at TeLCFS= 30 eV and ne= 1012 cm-3 reproduces the measured CII light emission profile [4]. The agreement indicates that the contribution of CD4 is stronger than that of C2D4 near the target. For the C2+ and C3+ profiles, however, the opposite results occur, which indicates the significant contribution of C2D4 near the target. At TeLCFS= 3 eV and ne= 1013 cm-3, which corresponds to the detached plasma condition, there is the influence of the charge transfer reactions of CxDy with D+. By the charge transfer reactions, the penetrations are suppressed. In particular, for CD4 it is more pronounced. For the net erosion rate, there is also the influence of the charge transfer reactions, by which the local redeposition for CD4 and C2D4 is enhanced.

References

[1] B.V. Mech et al., J. Nucl. Mater. 255 (1998) 153.
[2] A. B. Ehrhardt et al., Rep. Princeton Plasma Phys. Lab., PPPL-2477, 1986.
[3] J. N. Brooks et al., Rep. Argonne Natl. Lab. ANL/FPP/TM-297, 1999.
[4] A. Kirschner et al., Phys. Scr. T91 (2001) 57.
[5] G. Federici et al., J. Nucl. Mater. 313-316 (2003) 11.