A Review of Dangerous Dust in Fusion Reactors: from Its Creation to Its Resuspension in Case of LOCA and LOVA

Riccardo Rossi,Luigi Poggi,Jean-François Ciparisse,Pasquale Gaudio,Carlo Bellecci,Andrea Malizia

doi:10.3390/en9080578

Abstract

The choice of materials for the future nuclear fusion reactors is a crucial issue. In the fusion reactors, the combination of very high temperatures, high radiation levels, intense production of transmuting elements and high thermomechanical loads requires very high-performance materials. Erosion of PFCs (Plasma Facing Components) determines their lifetime and generates a source of impurities (i.e., in-vessel tritium and dust inventories), which cool down and dilute the plasma. The resuspension of dust could be a consequences of LOss of Coolant Accidents (LOCA) and LOss of Vacuum Accidents (LOVA) and it can be dangerous because of dust radioactivity, toxicity, and capable of causing an explosion. These characteristics can jeopardize the plant safety and pose a serious threat to the operators. The purpose of this work is to determine the experimental and numerical steeps to develop a numerical model to predict the dust resuspension consequences in case of accidents through a comparison between the experimental results taken from campaigns carried out with STARDUST-U and the numerical simulation developed with CFD codes. The authors in this work will analyze the candidate materials for the future nuclear plants and the consequences of the resuspension of its dust in case of accidents through the experience with STARDUST-U.

Highlights

The choice of materials for the future nuclear fusion reactors is a crucial issue
In the core of the sun, the huge gravitational pressure allows this to happen at temperatures of around 10 million degrees Celsius. Gas raised to these temperatures becomes a “plasma”, where the electrons are completely separated from the atomic nuclei” [2]
ENEA Fusion Technology of Frascati (Italy) has developed a facility, STARDUST, in order to reproduce experimental conditions comparable to those expected in International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in case of LOss of Vacuum Accidents (LOVA) or LOss of Coolant Accidents (LOCA) in order to get a mathematical model to predict dust re-suspension

Summary

Introduction

The choice of materials for the future nuclear fusion reactors is a crucial issue. In the fusion reactors, the combination of very high temperatures, high radiation levels, intense production of transmuting elements and high thermomechanical loads requires very high-performance materials. The resuspension of dust could be a consequences of LOss of Coolant Accidents (LOCA) and LOss of Vacuum Accidents (LOVA) and it can be dangerous because of dust radioactivity, toxicity, and capable of causing an explosion These characteristics can jeopardize the plant safety and pose a serious threat to the operators. In the core of the sun, the huge gravitational pressure allows this to happen at temperatures of around 10 million degrees Celsius. Gas raised to these temperatures becomes a “plasma”, where the electrons are completely separated from the atomic nuclei (ions)” [2]. The process, which requires temperatures of approximately 72 million degrees F (39 million degrees Celsius), produces 17.6 million electron volts of energy [3].”

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