Particle behavior close to the lower wall of a tokamak type geometry during a loss of vacuum accident

Abstract

The behavior of tungsten and beryllium particles close to the wall of a tokamak type geometry (i.e. a toroidal vacuum vessel) during a loss of vacuum accident (LOVA) is explored in this paper.Values of the flow field and temperature of the air surging into the torus were calculated by Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations from an initial low pressure of 1000 Pa by Gelain et al., Fusion Engineering and Design, 100:87–99, 2015. A new CFD calculation is performed here for an initial low pressure of 500 Pa. The aerodynamic forces on particles in rarefied flow are derived from the calculated friction velocity and temperature in the lowest wall region. The focus is on spherical particles, but these values of forces are complemented for comparison with an estimate of the force on an elongated particle following Sentman (1961). Typical particles with diameters of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 μm are considered. The possibility for particles which are detached from the lower wall to be entrained away the wall is explored. A particle may be detached by the flow field provided it escapes the adhesion force with the wall, which occurs only for a rough wall and large particles. It is then entrained away from the lower part of the wall provided its weight is smaller than the aerodynamic force, which occurs even at low pressure for all sizes of studied beryllium particles and only for specific sizes and a pressure above 1500 Pa for tungsten particles. This key influence of particle weight on the particle dynamics in rarefied gas flow is the focus of the paper. As a result, only particles of intermediate diameters may be resuspended and transferred away from the wall during the whole pressurisation sequence of the vessel. Using the data for the initial low pressure of 500 Pa, these particle diameters are 5, 10 μm for tungsten and 5, 10, 20 μm for beryllium.