Crack growth in first wall made of reduced activation ferritic steel by transient creep due to long pulse operation

The long pulse operation is assumed in ITER and future reactor. If the first wall has a defect, the crack may be propagated by cyclic thermal loads. In addition, flattop of more than 300 s during plasma burning is expected in ITER, so the crack propagation behavior will depend on the operation duration period. This study deals with the crack propagation behavior on F82H under high thermal load cycles. The high heat flux tests were performed under three types of duration periods to investigate creep fatigue behavior. To clarify the crack growth mechanism and the effects of transient creep, three-dimensional analyses were performed. It was concluded that the creep effect during the operation duration period enlarges stress intensity factor K in the cooling period and that consequently, the crack propagation length was increased.