Plasma-surface interactions during tokamak disruptions and rapid shutdowns

Recent progress in understanding of disruptions and in developing methods to avoid disruption damage is presented. Nearly complete mitigation of conducted heat loads has been achieved with high-Z gas jet shutdown. The resulting local radiation heat flash melting in the main chamber might be a concern in ITER, especially with beryllium walls. During the current quench, significant vessel forces can occur due to halo currents I halo; however, these are found to fall reliably below a boundary of (halo current fraction times halo current peaking factor) <0.7 both experimentally and numerically. Numerical simulations indicate that runaway electrons (REs) could cause serious damage to hard-to reach components in ITER, making their suppression a high priority. During the current quench, less than 20% of the density required for collisional suppression of REs appears to have been achieved. Collisional suppression of REs may have been achieved, however, in full-current RE beams with gas injection.