Estimation of the contribution of gaps to tritium retention in the divertor of ITER

An estimation of the contribution of gaps to beryllium deposition and resulting tritium retention in the divertor of ITER is presented. Deposition of beryllium layers in gaps of the full tungsten divertor is simulated with the 3D-GAPS code. For gaps aligned along the poloidal direction, non-shaped and shaped solutions are compared. Plasma and impurity ion fluxes from Schmid (2008 Nucl. Fusion 48 105004) are used as input. Ion penetration into gaps is considered to be geometrical along magnetic field lines. The effect of realistic ion penetration into gaps is discussed. In total, gaps in the divertor are estimated to contribute about 0.3 mgT s^-1 to the overall tritium retention dominated by toroidal gaps, which are not shaped. This amount corresponds to about 7800 ITER discharges up to the safety limit of 1 kg in-vessel tritium; excluding, however, tritium release during wall baking and retention at plasma-wetted and remote areas.