Beryllium armour produced by evaporation-condensation technique

Beryllium, as armour material for ITER plasma facing components, has a limited erosion lifetime. In order to repair the surface of eroded tiles in-situ, Be-deposition technologies are under consideration. One of them uses the physical vapour deposition of beryllium on copper or beryllium substrate produced by a hot Be-target placed in the vicinity of this substrate. Three different options for using this technology for ITER Be-armour application are considered. The first option is the repair in-situ of eroded Be-tiles. The second option suggests the use of this technology to provide the joining of Be to Cu-substrate. The third option assumes the use of evaporated-condensed beryllium as a bulk the material bonded to copper substrate by conventional joining (Brazing et al.) techniques. The first results and prospects of these approaches are presented below. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.