DEMONA

The German-Swiss aerosol-decay demonstration experiment DEMONA is presented in this report. Starting from radioactivity release limits set forth in nuclear regulatory codes it is shown that a large scale aerosol decay experiment is only justifiable for hypothetical core melt accidents and as such an important contribution to the efforts to ultimately quantify the 'source term'. Basic requirements of the experiment are outlined in order to assure its demonstration character both as far as aerosol behaviour in a typical German PWR of the Biblis-A-type is concerned and for the aerosol code NAUA. The important planning aspects such as selection of the appropriate vessel, vessel thermodynamic and aerosol instrumentation, aerosol generation and the test matrix are discussed in terms of demonstrating the prediction capabilities of the containment thermodynamic code and the aerosol code. (Auth.)