Objectives and expected outcomes

The aim of the present project is to develop an integrated simulation tool that enables evaluating dust particle formation under long duration (~400s) semi-detached/detached regime conditions insured by rare gas seeding and/or in the presence of anomalous events such as disruption and VDE. Both tungsten and beryllium PFC’s will be considered. Two particle formation scenarios will be investigated.

The first one corresponding to anomalous events proceeds through a very high energy density deposition with a subsequent material fusion/evaporation followed by droplet emission and gas-phase nanoparticle nucleation as it is observed in plasma gun experiments.

The second mechanism corresponds to situations with an enhanced sputtering of the metallic plasma facing components (PFC’s) (in the presence of high-z ions) and a possible gas phase nucleation of nanoparticles.

One of the major objectives is to evaluate the amount of dust and nanoparticles produced and to analyze, whatever their fate, how these particles affect the behavior of the semi-detached/detached plasma. We will also assess the total quantity of particles created after a plasma experiment as well as their physical characteristics such as their average physical diameter, their specific surface, and chemical characteristics.