Investigation of the distribution of remaining tritium in divertor in LHD

Abstract

To reveal the triton transport and the tritium migration in a deuterium plasma experiment in the Large Helical Device (LHD), the distribution of the remaining tritium in divertor tiles made of graphite after the first deuterium plasma experimental campaign in 2017 was investigated. In this study, tritium contents in divertor tiles have been measured by using a full-combustion method. The asymmetric tritium retention in divertor tiles located at symmetric positions, which was found in the previous study by the surface tritium measurement using an imaging plate technique, has been confirmed by the results of the full-combustion method. The asymmetry is considered to be attributed to the asymmetric distribution of lost-points of energetic tritons in divertor. A depth profile of remaining tritium in a divertor tile estimated by using a combination of the imaging plate technique and a sputtering treatment shows that the peak of the profile locates at several micro-meters from the surface. This result suggests that the majority of the remaining tritium impinged upon the divertor tile as energetic tritons. In this study, a distribution of lost-points of energetic tritons has been calculated by using a Lorentz orbit following code (LORBIT) with taking into account divertor components. The obtained distribution has been compared with measured tritium distributions on divertor tiles. The measured and calculated distributions are similar to each other, but they are not the same. The difference between them can be attributed to plasma exposures during and after the deuterium plasma campaign.

Keywords

• Tritium measurements
• LHD
• Lorentz orbit following code
• Full-combustion method
• Imaging plate technique