Experimental and computational study of damage behavior of tungsten under high energy electron beam irradiation

In this work, damage behavior of tungsten under high heat flux loads was investigated both numerically and experimentally assuming a single heat pulse with duration of 0.5 s. Finite element simulations revealed that the thermal steady state was reached within several milliseconds after the onset of a heat flux pulse and tensile residual stress was produced during cooling providing the driving force for crack growth. The crack initiation and growth simulations and J-integral calculation at crack tips delivered consistent results on cracking mechanism. Electron beam irradiation tests on tungsten samples were performed, which confirmed the predicted damage behavior.