Qualification, commissioning and in situ monitoring of high heat flux plasma facing components

Up-to-date development of actively cooled high heat flux (HHF) plasma facing components (PFC) prototypes only allows reduced margins with regards to the ITER thermal requirements. Additionally, perfect quality cannot be ensured along series manufacturing: the presence of flaws which impair the heat transfer capability of the component, in particular at the interface armour/heat sink appears to be statistically unavoidable.In order to ensure a successful series production, a qualification methodology of actively cooled high heat flux plasma facing components is proposed. Secondly, advanced non-destructive techniques developed for HHF PFC commissioning are detailed with definition of acceptance criteria. Finally, innovative diagnostics for in situ monitoring during plasma operations or tokamak shutdowns are investigated in order to prevent immediate damage (safety monitoring); or evaluate component degradation (health monitoring). This work takes into account the relevance to Tore Supra, and is applied to W7X and ITER Divertor HHF PFC.