Numerical simulation of the bubble growth due to hydrogen isotopes inventory processes in plasma-irradiated tungsten

Hydrogen isotopes (HI) inventory is a key issue for fusion devices like ITER. It is especially urgent to understand how HI are retained in tungsten since it currently is the most important candidate material for the plasma-facing wall. Bubble growth is an important experimental complication that yet prevents a full understanding of HI retention processes in tungsten walls and most critically the divertor elements. In this work, we develop a model based on rate equations, which includes the bubble growth in tungsten being exposed to a HI plasma. In the model. HI molecules can be produced through recombination processes on the inner surface of a bubble, and HI molecules can also dissociate themselves to solute atoms, and the latter diffuse into the bulk wall because of very high pressures inside the bubble. The present model is applied to simulate how HI are retained in plasma-irradiated tungsten in the form of molecules to explain the wall temperature, trap concentration, incident HI flux and fluence dependencies of bubble growth. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.