Development and testing results of water-cooled divertor target concepts for EU DEMO reactor

Power handling is one of the most critical scientific and technological challenges for a nuclear fusion power plant. Divertor is a key in-vessel component of a fusion reactor being in charge of power exhaust and removal of impurity particles. For the European demonstration reactor (EU-DEMO), divertor targets local peak heat flux is expected to reach more than 20 MW/m² during slow transient events. Sufficient heat removal capacity of divertor targets against normal and transient operational scenarios is the major requirement. Material degradation due to neutron irradiation has to be also considered (cumulative dose for the structural material: up to 14 dpa for lifetime).