Effect of runaway electrons and VDE's on ITER first wall

Runaway electron and VDE energy deposition transients pose a major Be and W armour lifetime issue depending on their frequencies. The impact is more severe in the case of W because of the high minimum armour thickness required to prevent Cu from melting. Use of W armour should be limited to regions where such 'slow' high energy deposition transients are highly unlikely. Future effort is required to better understand and characterise these events and to develop design measures to address the issue. (author)