Fusion Materials Science and Technology Research Needs: Now and During the ITER era
The plasma facing components, first wall and blanket systems of future tokamak-based fusion power plants arguably represent the single greatest materials engineering challenge of all time. Indeed, the United States National Academy of Engineering has recently ranked the quest for fusion as one of the top grand challenges for engineering in the 21st Century. These challenges are even more pronounced by the lack of experimental testing facilities that replicate the extreme operating environment involving simultaneous high heat and particle fluxes, large time varying stresses, corrosive chemical environments, and large fluxes of 14-MeV peaked fusion neutrons. This paper will review, and attempt to prioritize, the materials research and development challenges facing fusion nuclear science and technology into the ITER era and beyond to DEMO. In particular, the presentation will highlight the materials degradation mechanisms we anticipate to occur in the fusion environment, the temperature- displacement goals for fusion materials and plasma facing components and the near and long-term materials challenges required for both ITER, a fusion nuclear science facility and longer term ultimately DEMO.