Development of Actively Cooled Plasma-Facing Components for Tore Supra

To fulfill the Tore Supra mission (the realization and study of high-performance long-duration discharges), the development of reliable actively cooled plasma-facing components is mandatory. This was foreseen from the beginning of Tore Supra, and since 1985, the Tore Supra team has been involved in the development and fabrication of actively cooled plasma-facing components. The initial configuration of the machine in 1988 included a 12 m² inner first wall made of stainless steel tubes armoured with brazed graphite, outer water-cooled stainless steel panels, and modular pump limiters. This configuration, using the inner wall as limiter, allowed 20- to 30-s-duration plasma discharges to be performed. Further progress required the development of a more reliable brazing technique and a limiter support system mechanically independent of the vacuum vessel. A new configuration (Composants Internes et Limiteur project), using a completely new concept of high-heat-flux components (including notably a braze-free bond between carbon-fiber composite tiles and copper heat sink), was therefore launched in 1997. With this new configuration, discharges up to 6 min with 1 GJ of injected and removed power were achieved in 2003.