Video tracking and post-mortem analysis of dust particles from all tungsten ASDEX Upgrade

• Published in: Journal of nuclear materials Vol. 415; no. 1; pp. S1085 - S1088
• Main Authors: Endstrasser, N., Brochard, F., Rohde, V., Balden, M., Lunt, T., Bardin, S., Briançon, J.-L., Neu, R.
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.08.2011; Elsevier
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Controled nuclear fusion plants; Density; Dust; Dust collectors; Energy; Energy. Thermal use of fuels; Exact sciences and technology; Fission nuclear power plants; Fuels; Illumination; Installations for energy generation and conversion: thermal and electrical energy; Morphology; Nuclear fuels; Trajectories; Tungsten; Vessels; Tokamak; Dust; Silicon; Tungsten; Nuclear reactor
• ISSN: 0022-3115; 1873-4820
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jnucmat.2010.07.045

2D dust particle trajectories are extracted from fast framing camera videos of ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) by a new time- and resource-efficient code and classified into stationary hot spots, single-frame events and real dust particle fly-bys. Using hybrid global and local intensity thresholding and linear trajectory extrapolation individual particles could be tracked up to 80ms. Even under challenging conditions such as high particle density and strong vacuum vessel illumination all particles detected for more than 50 frames are tracked correctly. During campaign 2009 dust has been trapped on five silicon wafer dust collectors strategically positioned within the vacuum vessel of the full tungsten AUG. Characterisation of the outer morphology and determination of the elemental composition of 5×104 particles were performed via automated SEM–EDX analysis. A dust classification scheme based on these parameters was defined with the goal to link the particles to their most probable production sites.