Erosion of a tungsten limiter under high heat flux in TEXTOR

Erosion characteristics of a tungsten plate heated up in TEXTOR by the plasma load have been investigated at temperatures extending to the melting point. No enhancement of atomic release exceeding physical sputtering and normal thermal sublimation for temperatures below 3700 K was observed. The liquid tungsten moved fast along the plate in the direction perpendicular to the magnetic field lines. The motion is caused by the Lorentz force due to the thermoelectron current emitted from the hot tungsten surface. The motion of liquid tungsten caused a material loss of 2.85 g during two discharges. The material redistribution due to the melt layer motion is compared with a MEMOS-1.5D simulation.