Liquid metal

About: Liquid metal is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 6947 publications have been published within this topic receiving 77785 citations. The topic is also known as: liquid alloy & liquid metal alloy.

Liquid-Metal Corrosion

Abstract: A review of corrosion and environmental effects on the mechanical properties of candidate structural alloys for use with liquid metals in fusion reactors is presented. The corrosion/mass transfer behavior of austenitic and ferritic steels and vanadium-base alloys is evaluated to determine the preliminary operating temperature limits for circulating and static liquid-lithium and Pb-17Li systems. The influence of liquid-metal environment on the mechanical properties of structural materials is discussed. Corrosion effects of nitrate and fluoride salts are presented. Requirements for additional data are identified.

Natural convection in a liquid metal heated from above and influenced by a magnetic field

Abstract: Natural convection in a liquid metal heated locally at its upper surface and affected by a vertical magnetic field is investigated both experimentally and numerically. The experiments are conducted in a cylindrical test cell of large aspect ratio which is typical for application. The cell is filled with the liquid alloy GaInSn in eutectic composition. Temperature and velocity are measured using thermocouples and an electric potential probe, respectively. In the absence of the magnetic field the experimental results indicate a dependence of the Nusselt number on the Rayleigh number according to the law Nu∝Ra0.191. The particular value of the scaling exponent is in excellent agreement with the prediction of a scaling analysis for laminar, boundary layer-type flow in a low-Prandtl number fluid. Furthermore the experiments demonstrate that the Nusselt number and therefore the convective heat losses can be decreased by about 20% when a magnetic field of moderate strength (B=0.1 T) is present. The numerical simulations solve the Boussinesq equations in an axisymmetric geometry using a finite element method. The results of the simulations are both quantitatively and qualitatively in good agreement with the experimental observations. Deviations are attributed to the three-dimensional characteristics of the flow.

A Microfluidic Chip for Liquid Metal Droplet Generation and Sorting

Abstract: A liquid metal based microfluidic system was proposed and demonstrated for the generation and sorting of liquid metal droplets. This micro system utilized silicon oil as the continuous phase and Ga66In20.5Sn13.5 (66.0 wt % Ga, 20.5 wt % In, 13.5 wt % Sn, melting point: 10.6 °C) as the dispersed phase to generate liquid metal droplets on a three-channel F-junction generator. The F-junction is an updated design similar to the classical T-junction, which has a special branch channel added to a T-junction for the supplement of 30 wt % aqueous NaOH solution. To perform active sorting of liquid metal droplets by dielectrophoresis (DEP), the micro system utilized liquid-metal-filled microchannels as noncontact electrodes to induce electrical fields through the droplet channel. The electrode channels were symmetrically located on both sides of the droplet channel in the same horizontal level. According to the results, the micro system can generate uniformly spherical liquid metal droplets, and control the flow direction of the liquid metal droplets. To better understand the control mechanism, a numerical simulation of the electrical field was performed in detail in this work.