Improvement of the shadow tracking setup as a method to measure the velocities values of dark dust in order to reduce the risks of radioactive releases or explosions

Abstract

The mobilisation of dust is a key security issue in nuclear and industrial plants because it can provoke both explosions (in particular temperature and pressure conditions) and dangerous radioactive releases. This work is focused on the tungsten dust resuspension inside small tank for aerosol removal and DUST (STARDUST)-Upgrade, an experimental facility used to reproduce different conditions typical of the loss of vacuum accidents. In this paper, the authors present the facility and the materials used to mount the experimental setup together with the methods and algorithms implemented to track the dust velocity vectors. Tungsten dust is also analyzed through scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction to find some correlation between the variation of the dust morphology, due to the different experimental conditions, with the dust mobilisation paths. The materials and methods together with the experimental results are analyzed and discussed to demonstrate the implementation with the shadow tracking setup presented in the previous facility STARDUST.