2025 – Directors Reserve: PIT Industry Day Placeholder

Directors Reserve: PIT Industry Day Placeholder

2025 Research Campaign, Thrust: FPP Candidate Wall Materials

Purpose of Experiment

A full day of Director’s Reserve experimental time has been allocated for a Fusion Materials Industry Day. This Industry Day accommodates three proposals from private sector fusion companies, all new DIII-D users, which seek to study the interaction of advanced fusion materials and components in a high-performance plasma environment. This topic is a high priority for the U.S. fusion pathway, and extends the scope and time available for materials testing and plasma-material interactions studies within the FY25 campaign. The three participating companies include: Tokamak Energy, studying advanced and additively manufactured tungsten; Avalanche Energy, studying refractory multi-principle element alloys (MPEAs); Thea Energy, testing boron pebble rod plasma-facing components.

Experimental Approach

The experiment day is subdivided into three parts, with a total of 6 DiMES heads used to expose the companies’ novel materials. The first portion of the experiment will test the materials from Tokamak Energy, exposing samples to H-mode plasmas to study the response of different W materials to combined high heat / particle flux and ELMs. Two DiMES heads are allocated. For this purpose, we will use H-mode reference shot #200083 developed for the FPP Candidate Materials Thrust experiments in 2024. This discharge uses a `rastering’ strike-point algorithm specifically developed to broaden the average heat flux profile across DiMES. One DiMES will experience this unmodified H-mode shot, while the second DiMES will used a detached plasma variation. The second portion of the experiment will transition over to testing of the MPEA samples. A single DiMES holder with an array of MPEAs will be exposed to the standard rastering H-mode reference discharge. The third portion of the experiment will test the boron pebble rod concept. The experiment plan is to expose three pebble rod samples in DiMES at various levels of protrusion (2 – 5 mm) from the divertor floor and at various power levels, moving from L-mode (outer strike point OSP) to a hot vertical displacement event (VDE), and increasing ion fluence by increasing the dwell times. The three rods receive a total of ~ 8 shots and will be mounted into a DiMES cup holder for capturing released pebbles.

Interested in learning more about how engagement with DIII-D benefits the fusion industry and supply chain? Join us for the DIII-D Industry Event Day on Nov. 14th! Registration and further information can be found here.

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