Actively cooled plasma facing components in Tore Supra

The conception and realisation of a full protection of the vessel against heat and particle flux at the plasma edge is certainly one of the most challenging issues on the route to a steady-state thermonuclear fusion reactor. Tore Supra has accomplished a pioneer work since 1988 by the early installation of a set of high heat flux actively cooled components (modular limiters, inner wall) in the perspective of the realisation of long pulse steady-state plasma discharges. As 2 min duration record discharges were obtained in 1996 with 280 MJ of circulated energy, a wealth of R&D was accomplished on a variety of concepts for plasma facing components (PFCs), in close collaboration with European industry. This R&D was aimed primarily at developing PFCs with large power density extraction capacity (i.e. 10 MW/m(2)) and with reliable bonding of the facing material to the heat sink. The series fabrication of a large number of high performance pieces was undertaken and is now mid-way to completion. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.