Fusion technology activities at JET in support of the ITER program

Among the technological activities performed at JET in support of the scientific objectives of both JET and ITER, a significant effort is devoted to the investigation of the erosion, transport and deposition of wall materials, and of their fuel retention properties. With the analysis of wall tiles retrieved in the 2010 shutdown, the full characterization of the previous JET carbon wall is obtained. In order to confirm the expectations on properties of the new ITER-Like Wall (ILW) installed in 2011, a large number of marker tiles and profiled tiles have been prepared and installed both in the main wall and in the divertor. These will be retrieved from the vessel during a short shutdown at the end of 2012 and analyzed. The major changes introduced by the new ILW materials in JET required also a new nuclear characterization of the machine. Neutronics measurements have been performed to obtain the neutron/γ-ray field changes inside and outside the JET machine. The experimental data are also used to validate neutronics codes used in ITER design. A new calibration of neutron detectors, scheduled in the 2012 shutdown and adopting the same procedure as in ITER, has been prepared based on extensive neutronics calculations.