Technique for Measuring Thermophysical Properties of Refractory Metals at Supercritical Temperatures

A foil confined in a sapphire cell is heated by an electrical current pulse at rates from 1010 to 1 0 1 1 K . s - 1 . Temporal evolutions of the temperature and pressure distributions in the foil is investigated by means of numerical modeling. It is demonstrated that such a technique allows reaching temperatures far above 10,000 K and pressures up to 50 kbar and provides a uniform temperature and pressure in the foil. The technique has been applied for investigation of liquid tantalum. Experimental results on temperature measurement are discussed. Data on specific heat of liquid tantalum at temperatures up to 11,000 K are reported.