The interaction of flow, heat transfer, and free interfaces in an electron-beam vaporization system for metals
- Aspen Technology, Inc., Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States)
- Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
A numerical analysis is made of the liquid flow and energy transport in a system to vaporize metals. The energy from an electron beam heats metal confined in a water-cooled crucible. Metal vaporizes from a hot pool of circulating liquid which is surrounded by a shell of its own solid. Flow in the pool is strongly driven by temperature-induced buoyancy and capillary forces and is located in the transition region between laminar and turbulent flow. At high vaporization rates, the thrust of the departing vapor forms a trench at the beam impact site. A modified finite element method is used to calculate the flow and temperature fields coupled with the interface locations. The mesh is structured with spines that stretch and pivot as the interfaces move. The discretized equations are arranged in an {open_quotes}arrow{close_quotes} matrix and solved using the Newton-Raphson method. The electron-beam power and width are varied for cases involving the high-rate vaporization of aluminum. Attention is focused on the interaction of vaporization, liquid flow, and heat transport in the trench area.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 108085
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC-116997; CONF-941128-8; ON: DE96000090; TRN: 95:007065
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Annual meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, San Francisco, CA (United States), 13-18 Nov 1994; Other Information: PBD: Nov 1994
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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