An investigation of unipolar arcing damage on stainless steel and titanium carbide coated surfaces

• Main Authors: Keville, Michael Thomas, Lautrup, Robert William
• Other Authors: Schwirzke, F, R
• Language: en_US
• Published: Monterey, California. Naval Postgraduate School 2012
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10945/18982

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited. === Unipolar arcing was studied using a new method of laser plasma production. The mechanism of unipolar arcing has been shown in the literature to be the most important source of wall erosion and plasma pollution. Arcing is of particular concern in Tokamak and other magnetically confined fusion devices. The experiment was conducted using a neodymium-glass laser in both normal pulse and !-switched modes to generate a hot plasma. This plasma, generated from several different targets, was used to initiate arcing on the surface. From the experimental results, a model of the arcing process was proposed which extended those available in the literature. Further analysis using TIC film deposited by the Activated Reactive Evaporation technique indicated that such films showed promise in preventing or greatly minimizing unipolar arcing damage.