Effect of cesium pressure on thermionic stability

It is shown that under certain conditions of heat input, reservoir temperature, and load voltage or resistance a thermionic converter can equilibrate at two radically different operation points, corresponding to conditions of high and low cesium coverage. Moreover, abrupt transitions between these operating regimes, accompanied by a temperature rise of hundreds of degrees, can occur whenever the critical heat generation rate for a given reservoir temperature is exceeded. To provide an adequate safety margin against such an occurrence, thermionic systems must be operated at relatively high cesium pressures, even though this may cause some performance degradation. This paper consists of two parts. The first explains the above effect with reference to a single converter. The second part illustrates the effect of cesium reservoir temperatures on the dynamic behavior of an open-loop thermionic reactor following a small reactivity perturbation.