Glass Melt Emissivity, Viscosity, and Foaming Monitoring with Millimeter-Waves
Nuclear waste glass processing efficiencies, improved melter control to anomalies such as foaming, and environmental compliance would be facilitated by the availability of on-line monitoring technologies. It has been shown that the millimeter-wave (MMW) range of the electromagnetic spectrum (0.3-10 mm) is ideally suited to hot melter environments by having wavelengths long enough to penetrate optically obscure views yet short enough to provide spatial resolution with reliable refractory quasi-optical components. A thermal return reflection (TRR) method has been developed that allows a millimeter-wave pyrometer to determine emissivity by returning a portion of the thermal emission as a probe. Melt glass viscosities in the range 20 -2000 Poise and specific gravities have been measured by rates of flow and displacements inside hollow MMW ceramic waveguides immersed into the melts. Glass foaming has been observed by detecting the melt surface swelling followed by the increase in surface emissivity after gases break the surface.
- Research Organization:
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA; Pacific Northwest National Lab., Richland, WA; Savannah River Technology Center, Aiken, SC (US)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC) (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 826150
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 226th American Chemical Society Meeting, New York, NY (US), 09/07/2003--09/11/2003; Other Information: PBD: 10 Sep 2003
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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Related Subjects
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
37 INORGANIC
ORGANIC
PHYSICAL AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
COMPLIANCE
EMISSIVITY
GASES
GLASS
MONITORING
PROCESSING
PYROMETERS
RADIOACTIVE WASTES
REFLECTION
SPATIAL RESOLUTION
SWELLING
VISCOSITY
WAVEGUIDES
WAVELENGTHS