Characterisation of metal combustion with DUST code

•This paper is part of the work carried out by researchers of the Technical University of Cartagena, Spain and the Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Security of France.•We have developed a code for the study of mobilisation and combustion that we have called DUST by using CAST3M, a multipurpose software for studying many different problems of Mechanical Engineering.•In this paper, we present the model implemented in the code to characterise metal combustion which describes the combustion model, the kinetic reaction rates adopted and includes a first comparison between experimental data and calculated ones.•The results are quite promising although suggest that improvement must be made on the kinetic of the reaction taking place. The code DUST is a CFD code developed by the Technical University of Cartagena, Spain and the Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Security, France (IRSN) with the objective to assess the dust explosion hazard in the vacuum vessel of ITER. Thus, DUST code permits the analysis of dust spatial distribution, remobilisation and entrainment, explosion, and combustion. Some assumptions such as particle incompressibility and negligible effect of pressure on the solid phase make the model quite appealing from the mathematical point of view, as the systems of equations that characterise the behaviour of the solid and gaseous phases are decoupled. The objective of this work is to present the model implemented in the code to characterise metal combustion. In order to evaluate its ability analysing reactive mixtures of multicomponent gases and multicomponent solids, two combustion problems are studied, namely H2/N2/O2/C and H2/N2/O2/W mixtures. The system of equations considered and finite volume approach are briefly presented. The closure relationships used are commented and special attention is paid to the reaction rate correlations used in the model. The numerical results are compared with those obtained experimentally at the IRSN/CNRS facility in Orleans. They are commented and some conclusions are finally drawn.