Influence of preheating on tungsten damage under pulsed hydrogen plasma exposure

Preheated tungsten plate behavior under multiple pulsed hydrogen plasma irradiations in the PW-7 plasma accelerator was investigated. The preheating temperature was 973 K, which is above the ductile to brittle transition temperature (DBTT ≈ 673 K). The plate was exposed to three consecutive series of 13 plasma pulses each. Preheating sufficiently suppressed surface cracking at the early irradiation stage: after 13 pulses, cracks were rare, localized, and did not form extensive fractures. During subsequent irradiation series, the area fraction of fine cracks increased by ∼ 2% due to accumulation of dislocations around the pre-existing defects. However, their width remained nearly constant, averaging 0.2–0.3 μm, with rare cracks up to 1 μm in size. Repeated plasma exposure resulted in pronounced surface roughening associated with multiple melting cycles, crater formation and blister rupture, with roughness reaching ∼ 204 nm and a recorded sample mass loss of ∼ 2.8 mg. These results indicate that controlling tungsten preheating well above DBTT effectively reduces damage. However, the surface condition during initial irradiation significantly influences its subsequent morphological evolution. Preheating to 773 K, selected regarding the minimum DBTT value, has previously been demonstrated to be an effective approach for limiting crack growth. A further increase in temperature of approximately ∼ 1000 K did not qualitatively improve results: crack still formed and widths did not decrease. At the same time, the absence of further crack coarsening indicates that the limiting effect of preheating has been reached. Considering the increased energy costs, further increasing the preheating temperature seems unjustified.