The talk describes design and development, testing and manufacturing of plasma-facing components for the Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror (WHAM) experiment which is in the final construction stage near Madison, WI [1]. In particular, the team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has explored the cold spray deposition to create tantalum absorbing first wall interface which may significantly improve the performance of WHAM due to the suppression of the number of charge exchange events in the plasma edge. This absorbing first wall interface was shown to be able to withstand high particle fluxes (on the order of 10^21 D/(m^2 s)) and multiple heating cycles up to 1350 K without changes of the integrity, physical and retention properties of the coating [2]. Surface and bulk characterization of the coatings (purity, porosity) and effects of the plasma exposure and annealing tests with the focus on hydrogen retention will be presented. The final part of the talk will introduce the strategy of the PMI studies on WHAM and the recent developments of the refractive cold spray coatings and additive manufacturing solutions for the fusion technology.
[1] D. Endrizzi et al., Physics basis for the Wisconsin HTS Axisymmetric Mirror (WHAM), Journal of Plasma Physics, Volume 89, Issue 5, 2023, 975890501 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022377823000806
[2] M. Ialovega et al., Initial study on thermal stability of cold spray tantalum coating irradiated with deuterium for fusion applications, Phys. Scr. 98, 2023 115611 https://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1402-4896/ad0098