In a kraft recovery dissolving tank, high temperature molten smelt droplets fall into an aqueous solution and dissolve. The rapid heat transfer between molten smelt and water can lead to violent dissolving tank operation, and in severe cases, a dissolving tank explosion. In this study, an experimental apparatus was built to investigate the interaction between a molten synthetic smelt droplet and water. Smelt-water interaction was documented, and the effects of water and smelt temperatures on droplet explosion probability, explosion delay time, and explosion intensity were examined. The results show that explosions always occur below a lower critical water temperature, which is a function of smelt temperature, and never explodes above an upper critical water temperature. Up to the upper critical water temperature, as the water temperature increases, the explosion probability decreases, and the explosion delay time and the explosion intensity increases. A Smelt-Water Interaction Temperature (SWIT) diagram was constructed to describe the explosion probability at different smelt and water temperatures.

In a kraft recovery dissolving tank, high temperature molten smelt droplets fall into an aqueous solution and dissolve. The rapid heat transfer between molten smelt and water can lead to violent dissolving tank operation, and in severe cases, a dissolving tank explosion. In this study, an experimental apparatus was built to investigate the interaction between a molten synthetic smelt droplet and water. Smelt-water interaction was documented, and the effects of water and smelt temperatures on droplet explosion probability, explosion delay time, and explosion intensity were examined. The results show that explosions always occur below a lower critical water temperature, which is a function of smelt temperature, and never explodes above an upper critical water temperature. Up to the upper critical water temperature, as the water temperature increases, the explosion probability decreases, and the explosion delay time and the explosion intensity increases. A Smelt-Water Interaction Temperature (SWIT) diagram was constructed to describe the explosion probability at different smelt and water temperatures.

La vaporisation rapide du sodium liquide surchauffé est supposée être à l’origine des arrêts automatiques pour réactivité négative du réacteur Phénix.Un dispositif expérimental a été mis en œuvre pour reproduire la détente d'un gaz pressurisé, repoussant un liquide dans un canal de section rectangulaire très allongée.L’interface qui sépare les deux fluides, initialement plate, ondule du fait d'instabilités de Rayleigh-Taylor dont le caractère 2D est garanti par le rapport d'aspect de la section du canal. L’aire interfaciale augmente d'un facteur 50.L’expansion du gaz peut être divisée en deux phases principales : une phase dite « de Rayleigh-Taylor » (linéaire et non-linéaire) et une phase dite « à multi-structures » (transitionnelle et chaotique). La première est caractérisée par la dynamique de l'interface et l’aire interfaciale qui en résulte est proportionnelle à l’amplitude des ondulations. La deuxième est influencée par le comportement des structures liquides, dispersées dans la matrice gazeuse et l’aire interfaciale est alors proportionnelle au nombre de structures.La distribution de fraction volumique suggère un modèle d’écoulement composé de trois régions : une région où la frontière des bulles est clairement définie et régulière, une région compartimentée par des membranes liquides issues des frontières des bulles, une région diphasique formée de la queue de ces structures. L’analyse de sensibilité à la tension superficielle confirme que plus la tension est faible, plus les interfaces sont instables. Les ondes sont plus prononcées et plus de structures sont produites, ce qui conduit à une majoration du taux de production de l’aire interfaciale. / The sharp vaporization of superheated liquid sodium is investigated. It is suspected to be at the origin of the automatic shutdown for negative reactivity, occurred in the Phénix reactor at the end of the eighties.An experimental apparatus has been designed and operated to reproduce the expansion of overpressurized air, superposed to water in a narrow vertical rectangular section channel.When expansion begins, the initial flat interface separating the two fluids becomes corrugated under the development of two-dimensional Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities. The interface area increases significantly and becomes even 50 times larger than the initial value. Since the channel is very narrow, instabilities along the channel depth do not develop.The gas expansion in a narrow channel can be divided into two main phases: Rayleigh-Taylor (linear and non-linear) and multi-structures (transition and chaotic) phases. The former is characterized by the dynamic of corrugated profile and the interface area results proportional to the amplitude of corrugation The latter is influenced by the behavior of the liquid structures dispersed in gas matrix and the interface area is mainly proportional to the number of liquid structures.The distribution of volume fraction suggests a model of channel flow consisting of three regions: the regular profile of peaks, the spike region and the structures tails. The analysis of sensibility to surface tension confirms that, with a lower surface tension, the fluids configuration is more unstable. The interface corrugations are more pronounced and more structures are produced, leading to a higher increment of the interface area.

The impact of a spherical object onto a surface of a liquid, solid or granular material, is a configuration which occurs in numerous industrial and natural phenomena. The resulting dynamics can produce complex outcomes and often occur on very short time-scales. Their study thereby requires high-speed video imaging, as is done herein. This three-part dissertation investigates widely disparate but kindred impact configurations, where the impacting object is a solid steel sphere, or a molten metal droplet. The substrate, on the other hand, is either granular material, a liquid, or solid ice. Therefore both fluid mechanics and thermodynamics play a key role in some of these dynamics. Part I, investigates the penetration depth of a steel sphere which impacts onto a granular bed containing a mixture of grains of two different sizes. The addition of smaller grains within a bed of larger grains can promote a “lubrication” effect and deeper penetration of the sphere. However, there needs to be enough mass fraction of the smaller grains so that they get lodged between the larger grains and are not simply like isolated rattlers inside the voids between the larger grains. This lubrication occurs even though the addition of the small grains increases the overall packing fraction of the bed. We compare the enhanced penetration for the mixtures to a simple interpolative model based on the results for monodispersed media of the constitutive sizes. The strongest lubrication is observed for large irregular shaped Ottawa sand grains, which are seeded with small spherical glass beads. Part II, tackles the topic of a molten metal drop impacting onto a pool of water. When the drop temperature is far above the boiling temperature of water, a continuous vapor layer can form at the interface between the metal and water, in what is called the Leidenfrost phenomenon. This vapor layer can become unstable forming what is called a vapor explosion, which can break up the molten metal drop. We study the details of these explosions and characterize the metal debris. We contrast the results for two different metals, i.e. tin and a special metal alloy called Field’s metal. For tin the drop solidifies and forms a porous foam-like solid, whereas the Field’s metal breaks up into a multitude of spherical beads, with a range of sizes as small as a few microns. We attribute this difference to the much lower melting point of the Field’s metal, which is only 60oC, compared to 230oC for the tin. This allows more fragmentation of the Field’s metal drop before it solidifies. When the temperature of the impacting metal is increased, high-speed imaging reveals a sequence of up to three vapor explosions, each of increasing intensity. We measure the acceleration of the vapor interface and compare the size-distribution of the microbeads to the fastest growing instability mode of the corresponding Rayleigh-Taylor instability. Part III, investigates the coefficient of restitution when a steel sphere impacts on an ice surface. As observed in earlier studies the restitution coefficient is largest for the smallest impact velocities, where the surface is not greatly fragmented. Our focus is on greatly heating the sphere up to 400oC to investigate how the thermal load affects the short term interaction of the sphere with the ice. We see a clear trend where hotter spheres rebound less than cold spheres. We also track the speed of ice-fragments ejected during the earliest stages of the impact.