Infrared non destructive test of plasma facing components. Defect detection improvement

In order to control actively water cooled plasma facing components before their installation in Tore Supra, an infrared test bed called SATIR has been developed since 1994 by CEA. In 1998, the test bed was used industrially to test 60 High Heat Flux (HHF) elements for antenna limiters, designed to sustain an incident flux of 10 MW/m2. In the future, approximately 1000 HHF elements will be controlled on SATIR. Since the beginning, some technical improvements have been performed on SATIR: increase of the temperature gradient, development of a new software for infrared data analysis, increase of control capacity. This paper points out the facility improvement and the application to HHF elements testing. Experimental results have been compared with a 3-D Finite Element calculation and show a good correlation. (author)