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Christmas Light
’Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house
No electrons were flowing through even my mouse.
All devices were plugged by the chimney with care
With the hope that St. Nikola Tesla would share.
R. E. Nygren
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 47 | Number 3 | April 2005 | Pages 549-553
Technical Paper | Fusion Energy - First Wall, Blanket, and Shield | doi.org/10.13182/FST05-8
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Investigations of designs with a flowing free-surface molten salt as a first wall in the Advanced Power Extraction (APEX) Program led to questions concerning the liquidus temperature and solidification processes for the [1:1:1] composition in the LiF, BeF2 and NaF system. Sandia experiments, reported in this conference, showed a liquidus temperature near 425°C for the [1:1:1] composition. We also identified other compositions that showed congruent (eutectic) solidification and had sufficiently low melting temperatures (~305-320°C) to be useful in this application. Further characterization of these materials is necessary to evaluate their potential. This paper summarizes a 3-D finite element analysis of the experiment that evaluates thermal gradients in the salt pool and crucible, reproduces the "thermal plateau" associated with the isothermal freezing of a eutectic, and compares the calculated temperatures with readings from the three thermocouples in the experiment.