Runaway electron (RE) interaction with plasma-facing components (PFCs) has been documented to lead to deep volumetric melting and thermal shock driven material explosions followed by extensive wall cratering. This work reports a post-mortem FTU investigation that covers the primary localized RE-induced damage directly caused by beams striking poloidal or toroidal molybdenum (Mo)-based limiters and the subsequent secondary non-localized RE-induced damage inflicted on nearby limiter tiles by the mechanical impact of fast up to ∼ 1 km/s solid debris violently ejected during the direct RE-PFC interaction. Early indications on the resilience of tin liquid limiters to RE incidence are also presented. • Post-mortem study of localized and non-localized aspects of RE-induced PFC-damage in FTU. • Morphological and mechanical analysis of primary damage on poloidal and toroidal limiters of FTU. • Morphological analysis of secondary damage to nearby PFCs due to the impact of fast solid dust. • Preliminary observation that the tin liquid limiter is not severely damaged by RE incidence. • Despite the severity of RE-induced PFC damage, there was no significant effect on FTU operation.
Angeli et al. (Sun,) studied this question.