Flux dependence of carbon erosion and implication for ITER

In a collaboration of eight experiments the dependence of the chemical erosion yield of carbon on the ion flux, 0, was established to Phi(-0.54) at high ion fluxes. With this flux dependence a comprehensive description for chemical erosion is available as function of energy, temperature and flux. With this description the erosion and re-deposition of carbon in the ITER divertor can be calculated using the ITER steady-state plasma scenario and the ERO code. The resulting gross and net erosion rates during steady-state phase of discharges are compared to previous estimates using a constant erosion yield of 1.5%. The use of the complete parameter dependence results in an order of magnitude lower erosion, and, accordingly, of the T codeposition inventory. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.