Residual Effects of Chromium Gettering on the Outgassing Behavior of a Stainless Steel Vacuum Vessel

摘要

Laboratory experiments that compared chromium and titanium gettering showed that with chromium, unlike titanium, there is no appreciable diffusion of hydrogen isotopes into the film. It was concluded from these experiments that chromium gettering on tokamaks is more desirable than titanium gettering, since chromium should provide higher hydrogen recycling, minimize tritium inventories, and avoid hydrogen embrittlement. Large-scale sublimation sources, consisting of hollow elongated chromium spheres with internal resistance heaters, were developed for use on tokamaks. These sources have been used to getter both the Impurity Study Experiment (ISX) and the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR). In both bases, significant effects on plasma performance were observed, including lower Z/sub eff/ and radiated power losses and an increase in the density limit. In TFTR these effects were observed for a period of weeks after a single chromium deposition. This paper reports the results of laboratory experiments made to examine the gettering characteristics of chromium films under conditions simulating those in TFTR. (ERA citation 11:035283)