A preliminary assessment of beryllium dust oxidation during a wet bypass accident in a fusion reactor

A beryllium dust oxidation model has been developed at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) by the Fusion Safety Program (FSP) for the MELCOR safety computer code. The purpose of this model is to investigate hydrogen production from beryllium dust layers on hot surfaces inside a fusion reactor vacuum vessel (VV) during in-vessel loss-of-cooling accidents (LOCAs). This beryllium dust oxidation model accounts for the diffusion of steam into a beryllium dust layer, the oxidation of the dust particles inside this layer based on the beryllium–steam oxidation equations developed at the INL, and the effective thermal conductivity of this beryllium dust layer. This paper details this oxidation model and presents the results of the application of this model to a wet bypass accident scenario in the ITER device.