Vacuum arcs for plasma centrifuge isotope enrichment

Author

Hirshfield, J.L. ; Levin, L.A. ; Danziger, O.

Author_Institution

Isomed Ltd., Jerusalem, Israel

Volume

17

Issue

5

fYear

1989

fDate

10/1/1989 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

695

Lastpage

700

Abstract

Requirements for economic plasma centrifuge isotope enrichment are reviewed. A distributed-discharge vacuum arc in chromium, as reported by A.I. Vasin et al. (1979), is described and a qualitative model for its operation is given. Experiments were performed on a modified distributed-discharge vacuum arc in which the parameters appear to be well suited for plasma centrifuge operation. A 2-m-long, 10-cm-diameter fully ionized DC chromium arc was produced with ion density and temperature in the range of 10¹³ cm^-3 and 0.16 eV. Chromium mass throughput rates in the range of 1 g/min are reported, with continuous running times of up to 40 min., limited only by chromium supply

Keywords

arcs (electric); centrifuges; isotope relative abundance; plasma devices; 10 cm; 2 m; 40 min; Cr; continuous running times; distributed-discharge; distributed-discharge vacuum arc; fully ionised DC arc; ion density; mass throughput rates; plasma centrifuge isotope enrichment; temperature; Chromium; Frequency; Isotopes; Magnetic fields; Plasma density; Plasma devices; Plasma properties; Plasma temperature; Throughput; Vacuum arcs;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0093-3813

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/27.41184

Filename

41184