Mechanical and thermo-physical characterization of the carbon fibre composite NB31

Abstract

The use of carbon-based materials, i.e. graphite and carbon fibre composites (CFCs), as plasma facing materials in experimental nuclear fusion devices is widely spread. For the strike point area of the ITER divertor, a European candidate material was NB31, a three directional (3D) CFC material consisting of ex-pitch, ex-PAN and needled ex-PAN fibres, which will be replaced in the future by the newly developed material NB41. This composite material is used for the fabrication of divertor components for Wendelstein 7-X. In the frame of an extensive characterization on three different material batches of NB31 called 'pilot', 'serial' and 'additional' productions for W7-X and ITER, thermo-physical measurements and tensile tests were performed. The results were correlated to density and microstructure. The latter varied due to difficulties in the manufacturing process, in particular in the needling process. Therefore the specification of a minimum density and unit cell width (combined thickness of an ex-pitch and ex-PAN layer) is necessary to meet the ITER specifications for tensile strength and for thermal conductivity in the ex-pitch direction.