Beryllides for fusion reactors

In fusion reactors, Be is a candidate material for both ceramic breeder blankets in the form of pebbles and as plasma facing components (PFC) at the First Wall in the form of tiles. Beryllium intermetallic compounds (beryllides) were first investigated in the USA, looking for light-weight materials with high temperature performance. For the use in nuclear fusion reactor blankets, encouraging material data were obtained more recently in Japan for TiBe₁₂ in respect to compatibility, reactivity with water, tritium release, and irradiation effects. Beryllides would be also of interest as PFC material if it could be shown that beryllides mitigate the Be erosion into the plasma. At present, the data base is far too small in order if beryllides could become candidate materials for these applications. In this paper, performance parameters are listed and material data for TiBe₁₂ and VBe₁₂ are compiled including new experimental results obtained with a TiBe₁₂ sample, produced by GVT, and a VBe₁₂ sample, provided by Brush Wellman Inc.