Correlating Grain Size to Radiation Damage Tolerance of Tungsten Materials Exposed to Relevant Fusion Conditions

Gonderman, Sean Robert. M.S.N.E., Purdue University, August 2014. Correlating Grain Size to Radiation Damage Tolerance of Tungsten Materials Exposed to Relevant Fusion Conditions. Major Professor: Jean Paul Allian. Tungsten remains a leading candidate for plasma facing component (PFC) in future fusion devices. This is in large part due to its strong thermal and mechanical properties. The ITER project has already chosen to use an all tungsten divertor. Despite having a high melting temperature and low erosion rate, tungsten faces a large variety of issues when subject to fusion like conditions. These include embrittlement, melting, and extreme morphology change (growth of fuzz nanostructure). The work presented here investigates mechanisms that drive surface morphology change in tungsten materials exposed to fusion relevant plasmas. Specifically, tungsten materials of different grain sizes are studied to elucidate the impact of grain boundaries on irradiation damage. Exposure of ultrafine (< 500 nm) and nanocrystalline (< 100 nm) grain materials are exposed to high flux helium plasmas at the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER) in the Netherlands. These samples are then compared to large grain (1-5 microns) tungsten materials exposed to similar conditions at DIFFER or tungsten