Fragmentation of suddenly heated liquids

Technical Report · Fri Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 1985

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5770870· OSTI ID:5770870

Blink, J A

Fragmentation of free liquids in Inertial Confinement Fusion reactors could determine the upper bound on reactor pulse rate. The x-ray ablated materials must cool and recondense to allow driver beam propagation. The increased surface area caused by fragmentation will enhance the cooling and condensation rates. Relaxation from the suddenly heated state will move a liquid into the negative pressure region under the liquid-vapor P-V dome. The lithium equation of state was used to demonstrate that neutron-induced vaporization uses only a minor fraction of the added heat, much less than would be required to drive the expansion. A 77% expansion of the lithium is required before the rapid vaporization process of spinodal decomposition could begin, and nucleation and growth are too slow to contribute to the expansion.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 5770870
• Report Number(s): UCRL-53604; ON: DE85010773
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Thesis. Submitted to Univ. of California, Davis
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
LIQUID METALS
FRAGMENTATION
LIQUIDS
EVAPORATION
INERTIAL CONFINEMENT
RELAXATION
THERMONUCLEAR REACTORS
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
X RADIATION
CONFINEMENT
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELEMENTS
FLUIDS
IONIZING RADIATIONS
METALS
PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS
PLASMA CONFINEMENT
RADIATIONS
700208* - Fusion Power Plant Technology- Inertial Confinement Technology
640410 - Fluid Physics- General Fluid Dynamics