Tungsten (W) is one of the most promising plasma-facing materials for future fusion devices. Although its melting point is the highest among all metals, it still has great risk of melting under extremely high plasma heat fluxes, which is a big concern for ITER and future reactors. Actively cooled W plasma-facing components (PFCs) with both monoblocks and flat-type structure have been successfully installed in the lower divertor of the EAST tokamak since 2021, and provide a good opportunity for direct comparison of the damage mechanism for the two types of PFCs. Various in situ melting phenomena on the lower divertor have been observed by CCD cameras, which have been further verified by post-mortem inspections. Severe melting and even exfoliation of the edge-beveled W plates were observed on some W/Cu flat-type components at horizontal outer targets. Many droplets were ejected during long-pulse operations, which induced a significant increase of W impurities and total irradiation in the core plasma, and thus greatly deteriorated the plasma performance and even caused disruptions. Two different shaping structures of flat-type PFCs show different positions of melting and the corresponding mechanisms. Slight melting was found on the sharp leading edges of W/Cu monoblocks between cassette modules (inter-CM) for horizontal targets with small droplet ejection, which was much improved compared to that observed on the upper W divertor, illustrating that the application of a large-sized bevel chamfer inter-CM was generally effective. In addition, an unexpected melting phenomenon on the dome plate was attributed to the extreme transient heat flux during disruption with runaway electrons. The application of both types of W/Cu PFCs for the divertor provides important experiences and lessons for the engineering design and optimization of divertor PFCs in future fusion devices.
In situ leading-edge-induced damages of melting and cracking W/Cu monoblocks as divertor target during long-term operations in EAST