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| Hauptseite > Publikationsdatenbank > Surface Regeneration of Plasma-Facing Components by Wire-Based Laser Metal Deposition |
| Hauptseite > Publikationsdatenbank > Surface Regeneration of Plasma-Facing Components by Wire-Based Laser Metal Deposition |
| Book/Dissertation / PhD Thesis | FZJ-2026-03642 |
2026
Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH Zentralbibliothek, Verlag
Jülich
ISBN: 978-3-95806-971-8
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Please use a persistent id in citations: doi:10.34734/FZJ-2026-03642
Abstract: During operation of high-power nuclear fusion reactors plasma-facing components (PFCs) are exposed to challenging conditions. Due to its properties, pure tungsten is currently the preferred candidate for the plasma-facing material (PFM). However,even for tungsten-armored PFCs the service life remains limited due to surface erosion, neutron damage and overall degradation. The current approach is to extend the service life of PFCs through more durable designs or to replace them once theyreach their limit. Since the replacement is both time-consuming and costly, while also severely limiting the availability of the fusion reactor, alternative solutions have to be explored. In situ local deposition of tungsten on the armor of PFCs using additive manufacturing (AM) could compensate for erosion losses and thus increase the service life of these components. Wire-based laser metal deposition (LMD-w) was evaluated as the most suitable AM process for this task. Following the successful development of a suitable process for the deposition of tungsten coatings on tungsten substrate, the resilience of these coatings was tested under fusion relevant thermal loads. Test components armored with tungsten and coated with LMD-w tungsten were exposed to various thermal loading scenarios in the electron beam facility JUDITH 2. In these thermal loading studies, the LMD-w coatings demonstrated high resilience and excellent heat transfer to the underlying material. Since the coatings exhibit slight manufacturing-related waviness, the influence of wavy topologies on erosion and heat fluxes in a possible DEMO fusion reactor was simulated. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the waviness can be significantly reduced by remeltingthe surface via laser. Simulations and experiments were conducted to answer the question of the extent to which the damage expected after the fusion operation can be repaired. It was shown that LMD-w is in principle capable of healing cracks withdepths, as they are known to occur in tungsten after edge localized modes (ELMs). In summary, it was proven in the context of this work that erosion losses of the PFM can be successfully compensated and damage be healed by LMD-w and thatthe LMD-w coatings behave similarly to uncoated tungsten under fusion-relevant thermal loads. This work is the proof of principle for a new concept to extend the service life of PFCs by AM based regeneration of their armor, and thereby provides apotential solution to one of the biggest challenges of nuclear fusion technology. Looking ahead, the acquired insights should be utilized to develop an LMD-w processing unit specially adapted for processing tungsten, which enables optimized process results and is adapted to the environmental conditions within a fusion reactor.
Keyword(s): Condensed Matter Physics (2nd)
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