LAUSR

Abstract ASTEC is a system code originally designed to perform safety analysis in fission nuclear power plants and developed originally by IRSN (France) and GRS (Germany). Recently some modules of ASTEC have been modified by IRSN in order to be applicable for the safety analysis in the nuclear fusion plants. To test the effectiveness of the model in the peculiar conditions existing in a Tokamak, simulations of dust resuspension have been carried on using the data of the experiments performed in the past in the STARDUST (Small Tank for Aerosols Removal and Dust) facility. The final scope is to test the capability of the code to deal with the dusts resuspension phenomenon in near vacuum conditions. To support ASTEC calculations the ANSYS CFX commercial code is applied to evaluate properly the flow field and the thermal-hydraulic parameters during the transient. The first results are encouraging but substantial modifications in the resuspension models are necessary to take in account the particular physical conditions such as the extremely low density and very high air velocities during the transient.