Manufacturing issues for the production of beryllium clad prototype components for ITER

This paper reviews the manufacture of beryllium clad plasma facing components by AMEC under the auspices of EFDA to support the development of ITER. Over the last 2 years, three types of component have been produced: thermal fatigue mock-ups, Plasma Wall Interaction (PWI) samples and a full-scale ITER First Wall Panel (FWP) prototype. In this paper the manufacturing stages used to produce the components are summarised and the non-destructive examination and heat flux test results from the work are presented. Two issues are highlighted that are relevant for the series production of FWPs for ITER. Specifically these are that an integrated manufacturing process, covering all manufacturing stages should be used to minimise cost and material wastage. Also that small variations in the component geometry can significantly affect the quality of the ultrasonic NDE scans used to assess the beryllium tile bond integrity during manufacture. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V.