The high heat flux behaviour of carbon materials for plasma-facing applications is a decisive issue for the design of first wall structures. In order to clarify this issue a number of experimental studies using beam irradiation facilities have been carried out on carbon materials, especially fine grain graphites and C-C composite materials. In this paper the results of several of these studies are compared with regard to the crack and erosion behaviour of the tested materials.Concerning the crack behaviour of graphites, a common tendency can be observed which indicates that very fine grain graphites with a high coefficient of thermal expansion are inferior to coarser materials with low thermal expansion. The erosion results of the different studies do not show correlation with each other and vary within two orders of magnitude. C-C composites did not show cracking under the applied heat fluxes. Compared to 4-d C-C composites and fiber reinforced graphites, the tested 2-d C-C composites are highly anisotropic in terms of erosion.
Thermal shock resistances and fracture toughnesses of graphites and C/C-composites as plasma-facing first wall components for fusion reactor devices