Modelling of steady state erosion of CFC actively water-cooled mock-up for the ITER divertor

Calculations of the physical and chemical erosion of CFC (carbon fibre composite) monoblocks as outer vertical target of the ITER divertor during normal operation regimes have been done. Off-normal events and ELM's are not considered here. For a set of components under thermal and particles loads at glancing incident angle, variations in the material properties and/or assembly of defects could result in different erosion of actively-cooled components and, thus, in temperature instabilities. Operation regimes where the temperature instability takes place are investigated. It is shown that the temperature and erosion instabilities, probably, are not a critical point for the present design of ITER vertical target if a realistic variation of material properties is assumed, namely, the difference in the thermal conductivities of the neighbouring monoblocks is 20% and the maximum allowable size of a defect between CFC armour and cooling tube is +/-90 degrees in circumferential direction from the apex. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.