RESULTS OF JET OPERATION WITH CONTINUOUS CARBON AND BERYLLIUM X-POINT TARGET PLATES

The 1991/92 JET experimental campaign assessed the performance of three different toroidally continuous X-point target plates. The main differences were in the tile material, beryllium and carbon, and the presence of exposed edges. These three configurations have been tested up to power levels in excess of 22 MW and with gas fuelling at the X-point and in the midplane. With the beryllium a radiating divertor was achieved by puffing deuterium into the X-point region, while rapid ELMs resulted from deuterium puffing on the carbon target. The investigation into the importance of small edges, up to 1.5 mm, yielded some interesting results. Although the surface temperature rise was substantially reduced by eliminating exposed tile edges, the onset of the carbon bloom was not delayed by a similar amount. In this paper a model is presented which can explain this and other features of the bloom.