Exposure to near normal surfaces of poloidal divertor target plate tiles is a limiting feature of the power handling capability of the tiles. The problems associated with the design of poloidal divertor tiles, with beryllium chosen as the tile material, and possible methods of solving the problem are discussed. Thermal two- and three-dimensional analyses are carried out for the assessment of relative merits in performance due to modifications to the surface. The power handling capability (time to reach melting temperature of beryllium) of the target plate tiles is presented for unswept and swept plasma cases. Results have shown that sweeping the plasma improves the power handling capability by a factor of up to 10.