Cracking behavior of tungsten armor under ELM-like thermal shockloads II: A revised prediction for crack appearance map. (December 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Li, Muyuan; You, Jeong-Ha
• Is Part Of: Nuclear materials and energy. Volume 9(2016)
• Page Start: 598
• Page End: 603
• Publication Date: 2016-12
• Subjects: Divertor -- Tungsten armor -- ELM-like thermal shock -- Cracking, High-heat-flux loads -- Residual stress; Nuclear energy -- Periodicals; Nuclear fuels -- Periodicals; Nuclear reactors -- Materials -- Periodicals; Radioactive substances -- Periodicals; 621.4833
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nme.2016.02.001
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2352-1791

Abstract

Highlights: J -integrals were calculated for crack initiated after cooling down from loading. The predicted threshold load for cracking is between 0.3 and 0.6 GW/m 2 . The predicted threshold base temperature lies between 200 and 400 °C. The results show a good agreement with experimental observation. Abstract: In this work, the surface cracking features of tungsten armor under thermal shock loads by edge-localized mode (ELM) were investigated by means of computational fracture mechanics analysis. For the simulation it was assumed that a small crack was initiated at low temperature after the shut-off of thermal load in contrast to the previous studies where the presence of a crack before thermal loading was assumed. The threshold power density for surface cracking was predicted to range between 0.3 and 0.6 GW/m 2 while the threshold of base temperature lay between 200 and 400 °C. The theoretically predicted damage map agreed well with the experimental data from electron beam irradiation tests. The current simulation model turned out to match better to the real experimental observation than the previous predictions where the threshold base temperature lies roughly between 400 and 600 °C.