Impact of high transient loads on beryllium damage

Beryllium will be used as a plasma facing material for ITER first wall. This paper presents the results of recent experiments with Russian beryllium of TGP-56FW ITER grade on QSPA-Be plasma gun facility. The beryllium targets were exposed to up to 100 shots with pulse duration of 0.5 ms and average heat loads of 1.7 and 2.1 MJ/m
²
. After 10, 40 and 100 shots, the evolution of surface microstructure and cracks morphology and beryllium mass loss/gain under erosion process on the beryllium surface were studied as well as the erosion products.