There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

The major increase in discharge duration and plasma energy in a next step DT fusion reactor will give rise to important plasma-material effects that will critically influence its operation, safety and performance. Erosion will increase to a scale of several centimetres from being barely measurable at a micron scale in today's tokamaks. Tritium co-deposited with carbon will strongly affect the operation of machines with carbon plasma facing components. Controlling plasma-wall interactions is critical to achieving high performance in present day tokamaks, and this is likely to continue to be the case in the approach to practical fusion reactors. Recognition of the important consequences of these phenomena stimulated an internationally co-ordinated effort in the field of plasma-surface interactions supporting the Engineering Design Activities of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project (ITER), and significant progress has been made in better understanding these issues. The paper reviews the underlying physical processes and the existing experimental database of plasma-material interactions both in tokamaks and laboratory simulation facilities for conditions of direct relevance to next step fusion reactors. Two main topical groups of interaction are considered: (i) erosion/redeposition from plasma sputtering and disruptions, including dust and flake generation and (ii) tritium retention and removal. The use of modelling tools to interpret the experimental results and make projections for conditions expected in future devices is explained. Outstanding technical issues and specific recommendations on potential R&D avenues for their resolution are presented.

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Plasma{material interactions in current tokamaks and their implications for next step fusion reactors

This review article aims to provide an updated and comprehensive description of the development of the Electric Current Activated/assisted Sintering technique (ECAS) for the obtainment of dense materials including nanostructured ones. The use of ECAS for pure sintering purposes, when starting from already synthesized powders promoters, and to obtain the desired material by simultaneously performing synthesis and consolidation in one-step is reviewed. Specifically, more than a thousand papers published on this subject during the past decades are taken into account. The experimental procedures, formation mechanisms, characteristics, and functionality of a wide spectrum of dense materials fabricated by ECAS are presented. The influence of the most important operating parameters (i.e. current intensity, temperature, processing time, etc.) on product characteristics and process dynamics is reviewed for a large family of materials including ceramics, intermetallics, metal–ceramic and ceramic–ceramic composites. In this review, systems where synthesis and densification stages occur simultaneously, i.e. a fully dense product is formed immediately after reaction completion, as well as those ones for which a satisfactory densification degree is reached only by maintaining the application of the electric current once the full reaction conversion is obtained, are identified. In addition, emphasis is given to the obtainment of nanostructured dense materials due to their rapid progress and wide applications. Specifically, the effect of mechanical activation by ball milling of starting powders on ECAS process dynamics and product characteristics (i.e. density and microstructure) is analysed. The emerging theme from the large majority of the reviewed investigations is the comparison of ECAS over conventional methods including pressureless sintering, hot pressing, and others. Theoretical analysis pertaining to such technique is also proposed following the last results obtained on this topic.

Consolidation/synthesis of materials by electric current activated/assisted sintering

http://liu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:303552/FULLTEXT01

The Mn+1AXn phases: Materials science and thin-film processing

The MAX phases are a group of layered ternary compounds with the general formula Mn+1AXn (M: early transition metal; A: group A element; X: C and/or N; n = 1–3), which combine some properties of metals, such as good electrical and thermal conductivity, machinability, low hardness, thermal shock resistance and damage tolerance, with those of ceramics, such as high elastic moduli, high temperature strength, and oxidation and corrosion resistance. The publication of papers on the MAX phases has shown an almost exponential increase in the past decade. The existence of further MAX phases has been reported or proposed. In addition to surveying this activity, the synthesis of MAX phases in the forms of bulk, films and powders is reviewed, together with their physical, mechanical and corrosion/oxidation properties. Recent research and development has revealed potential for the practical application of the MAX phases (particularly using the pressureless sintering and physical vapour deposition coating rout...

Progress in research and development on MAX phases: a family of layered ternary compounds

Electromagnetic acoustic resonance (EMAR) provides accurate and stable evaluation. Its capability has been demonstrated through online monitoring using a large-scale corrosion test loop operating at high temperature. This study uses EMAR to evaluate the thickness of pipes in a nuclear power plant during its shutdown through signal processing based on superposition of n th compression. Sections of piping evaluated with EMAR include those in long-term service, where thinning may produce scale-like surfaces, and those having complicated geometry. Moreover, we compare measurement results obtained with EMAR and with ultrasonic testing (UT). The accuracy of EMAR depends on the pipe geometry, such as the pipe diameter and whether the pipe is straight or an elbow, the presence of welding, and complicated wall thinning. We consider the causes of the difference in thickness values between EMAR measurements and UT. Finally, we discuss how to implement EMAR in pipe inspection.

/pdf/implementation-of-electromagnetic-acoustic-resonance-in-pipe-109cmnrql1.pdf

Implementation of electromagnetic acoustic resonance in pipe inspection

High-Selectivity imaging of the closed fatigue crack due to thermal environment using surface-acoustic-wave phased array (SAW PA)

An eddy current testing (ECT) system with multi‐coil type probes is applied to size up cracks fabricated on austenite stainless plates. We have developed muti‐channel ECT system to produce data as digital images. The probes consist of transmit‐receive type sensors as elements to classify crack directions, working as two scan direction modes simultaneously. Template matching applied to the ECT images determines regions of interest in sizing up cracks. Finite element based inversion sizes up the crack depth from the measured ECT signal. The present paper demonstrates this approach for fatigue crack and stress corrosion cracking.

Natural crack sizing based on eddy current image and electromagnetic field analyses

Transmitter/receiver (TR) pancake probes are widely used in eddy current testing (ECT) owing to their multi-axial structure and sensitivity in different directions. However, the behavior of the ECT signal affected by the directivity of the TR pancake probe has not been discussed, especially when considering the magnetic properties of materials. The present paper therefore investigates the behavior of the ECT signal for different angles between the crack orientation and the centerline of the probe in experiments and numerical analysis. In experiments, sample plates of ferromagnetic carbon steel SM490 and non-ferromagnetic stainless steel AISI316 are employed for the investigation. Slits are fabricated on the plates to simulate cracks. Numerical analysis adapts a finite element method, the Ar method. The change in signal amplitude with the scanning angle has an obvious difference between the two materials in both experimental and simulation results. The presence of magnetic flux leakage around a slit in ferromagnetic material is assumed as the main reason for the difference and subsequently examined in numerical analysis. The results reveal that the magnetic field detected for a ferromagnetic material is the superposition of the magnetic field induced by eddy current and the magnetic flux leakage. The present study confirms the presence of magnetic flux leakage and explains the difference in the directivity of a TR pancake probe between ferromagnetic and non-ferromagnetic materials. This work contributes to a more reasonable analysis of ECT signals measured using a TR pancake probe when detecting cracks in different materials and the evaluation of crack orientation.

Tetsuya Uchimoto

Papers

Implementation of electromagnetic acoustic resonance in pipe inspection

High-Selectivity imaging of the closed fatigue crack due to thermal environment using surface-acoustic-wave phased array (SAW PA)

Natural crack sizing based on eddy current image and electromagnetic field analyses

Mechanism study for directivity of TR probe when applying Eddy current testing to ferro-magnetic structural materials

Changes in eddy current testing signals of fatigue cracks by heat processing