Numerical optimization of tungsten monoblock tile in EAST divertor

•A method based on Kriging model and Uniform Design is developed and applied to the geometry optimization of EAST W tile.•An optimized chamfering geometry is obtained and significantly reduces the maximum temperature on W monoblock.•The incident angle of plasma flux has a strong impact on the optimized chamfering geometry.

The ITER-like tungsten divertor with toroidally symmetric 1 mm × 1 mm chamfers on monoblock tiles has been installed in EAST in 2014. Hot spots were experimentally observed mostly along the toridial facing gaps between two columns of W/Cu monoblock units, which are often aggravated by installation misalignment. These hot spots can significantly degrade the power handling capability of W divertor and need to be alleviated.A numerical optimization model for tile chamfering design is built based on the finite element method (FEM), in which the numerical experiments are designed by the uniform table. The calculation results in ANSYS for these experiments are then processed employing the code Design and Analysis of Computer Experiments (DACE) in which the Kriging method is adopted to reconstruct a response surface. The optimum geometry can be derived from the minimum point on the surface. The results show that, under 200 MW/m2 parallel heat flux with an inclination angle of 3° with respect to tile surface, the maximum temperature on W tile with a 0.5 mm misalignment can be decreased to 2084 °C by adopting an optimized single-sided chamfer, 1.8 times lower than 1 mm × 1 mm symmetrically chamfered tile. The optimum chamfering geometry has a strong dependence on the inclination angle of plasma flux to tile surface. As a result, the monoblock tiles in a flat cassette module need to be chamfered differently to adapt to the varied inclination angles.