Improved containment transport modelling for hypothetical accidents in fusion power plants

We report here improvements to a code, FUSCON, developed for the SEAFP-2 (S afety and Environmental Aspects of Fusion Power) study to model containment transport and release to the environment. The previous Version of FUSCON d id not include heat transfer to the wall, accounted for condensation for on ly a limited set of conditions, and hence placed restrictions on some of th e containment parameters investigated. The improvements described involve m odelling of post-accident convective transport in the containment system. T his is a good basis for enhancement of the model to include mass transfer e ffects associated with condensation. Three-dimensional, computational-fluid -dynamics, finite-element calculations have guided the derivation of a comp utationally economic model of convective containment transport. The efficie ncy of the model will ensure that FUSCON is still sufficiently fast-running to be used to study confinements system optimisation and selection. (C) 20 00 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.