Divertor tungsten tiles erosion in the region of the castellated gaps

Highlights: • Simulation of the tungsten tiles erosion by different impurities in the divertor gap region is done by using a 2d3v Particle-In-Cell code. • High-Z impurity causes the largest erosion rate on W tile. • The peak physical sputtering erosion rate locates at the plasma-facing corners. - Abstract: Erosion of tungsten (W) is a very important issue for the future fusion device. The castellated divertor makes it more complicated due to complex geometry of the gap between the tiles. In this work, the plasma behaviors and resulting W tile erosion in the divertor tile gap region are studied by using a two dimension-in-space and three dimension-in-velocity (2d3 v) Particle-In-Cell (PIC) code. Deuterium ions (D⁺) and electrons are traced self-consistently in the simulation to provide the plasma background. Since there are lots of impurities, which may make a great impact on the tile erosion, in the divertor region to radiate the power, the erosion of W tile by different species are thus considered. The contributions of deuterium and impurities: Li, C, Ne, and Ar, to the W erosion, are studied under EAST conditions to show a straightforward insight. It is observed that the physical sputtering of W tile by impurities is much higher than that by the D ions, and the peak erosion region locates at the plasma-facing corners.