Particle size distribution of dust collected from Alcator C-MOD

摘要

There are important safety issues associated with tokamak dust, accumulated primarily from sputtering and disruptions. The dust may contain tritium, it may be activated, chemically toxic, and chemically reactive. The purpose of this paper is to present results from analyses of particulate collected from the Alcator C-MOD tokamak located at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The sample obtained from C-MOD was not originally intended for examination outside of MIT. The sample was collected with the intent of performing only a composition analysis. However, MIT provided the INEEL with this sample for particle analysis. The sample was collected by vacuuming a section of the machine (covering approximately 1/3 of the machine surface) with a coarse fiber filter as the collectino surface. The sample was then analyzed using an optical microscope, SEM microscope, Microtrac FRA particle size analyzer. The data fit a log-normal distribution. The count median diameter (CMD) of the samples ranged from 0.3 (micro)m to 1.1 (micro)m with geometric standard deviations (GSD) ranging from 2.8 to 5.2 and a mass median diameter (MMD) ranging from 7.22 to 176 (micro)m.