Metal droplet

A different scenario involving these three occurred when lightning struck an aluminium foundry. It is supposed that this dispersed molten metal droplets in air, which then exploded with the estimated force of 200 kg TNT, causing damage which allowed remaining molten metal to fall into the wet casting pit, producing a second explosion of half the power of the first [2],... 

Waldvogel, I Diversiev, G. Poulikakos, D. Megaridis, C. Attinger, D. Xiong, B. Wallace, D. 1998. Impact and solidification of molten-metal droplets on electronic substrates. J. Heat Transfer 120 539. 

This section describes the atomization processes and techniques for metal droplet generation. Advantages and drawbacks of the atomization systems are discussed along with typical ranges of operation conditions, design characteristics, and actual and potential applications. Commonly used atomization media and their thermophysical properties are also included. 

Droplet Formation in Water Atomization. In water atomization of melts, liquid metal stream may be shattered by impact of water droplets, rather than by shear mechanism. When water droplets at high velocities strike the liquid metal stream, some liquid metal fragments are knocked out by the exploding steam packets originated from the water droplets and subsequently contract into spheroidal droplets under the effect of surface tension if spheroidization time is less than solidification time. It is assumed that each water droplet may be able to knock out one or more metal droplet. However, the actual number of metal droplets produced by each water droplet may vary, depending on operation conditions, material properties, and atomizer designs. 

Figure 3.23. Schematic and micrograph of spreading, breakup and solidification modes of liquid metal droplets impinging on a cold surface. (a)-(d) Pancake pattern regularly shaped disks with or without corona, (e)-(h) Flower pattern irregularly shaped platelets with or without corona. (Micrograph reprinted with permission from Ref. 403 and 407. Courtesy of Dr. J. M. Houben, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands and courtesy of Dr. Seiji Kuroda, National Research Institute for Metals, Japan.)...

As described above, a number of empirical and analytical correlations for droplet sizes have been established for normal liquids. These correlations are applicable mainly to atomizer designs, and operation conditions under which they were derived, and hold for fairly narrow variations of geometry and process parameters. In contrast, correlations for droplet sizes of liquid metals/alloys available in published literature 318]f323ff328]- 3311 [485]-[487] are relatively limited, and most of these correlations fail to provide quantitative information on mechanisms of droplet formation. Many of the empirical correlations for metal droplet sizes have been derived from off-line measurements of solidified particles (powders), mainly sieve analysis. In addition, the validity of the published correlations needs to be examined for a wide range of process conditions in different applications. Reviews of mathematical models and correlations for... 

Table 4.16. Analytical and Experimental Correlations for Metal Droplet Sizes in Gas Atomization via Film or Sheet Breakup...

A limited number of empirical correlations have been developed for metal droplet sizes generated by water atomization, as listed in Table 4.18. In these correlations p is a system-specific constant, is the atomizing angle, i.e., angle between water nozzle axis and metal delivery nozzle axis, A is a proportional constant specific to atomizer type, melt type and melt temperature, n is a parameter depending on atomizer type, APw is the water pressure, Uw is the water velocity, and mw is the mass flow rate of water. 

Further studies are required to develop more comprehensive and general correlations for water-atomized metal droplets/particles. 

Fukanuma and Ohmori15101 also presented an analytical model for the flattening ratio of a molten metal droplet on a surface as a function of time and compared the model prediction to experimental data for molten tin and zinc droplets. An expression for the flattening ratio was derived based on some simplified assumptions and approximations ... 

Generally, 3-D models are essential for calculating the radial distributions of spray mass, spray enthalpy, and microstructural characteristics. In some applications, axisymmetry conditions may be assumed, so that 2-D models are adequate. Similarly to normal liquid sprays, the momentum, heat and mass transfer processes between atomization gas and metal droplets may be treated using either an Eulerian or a Lagrangian approach. 

F or the purpose of analysis, the thermal history of a metal droplet in the spray can be divided into six regions ... 

It should be noted that it is difficult to obtain models that can accurately predict thermal contact resistance and rapid solidification parameters, in addition to the difficulties in obtaining thermophysical properties of liquid metals/alloys, especially refractory metals/al-loys. These make the precise numerical modeling of flattening processes of molten metal droplets extremely difficult. Therefore, experimental studies are required. However, the scaling of the experimental results for millimeter-sized droplets to micrometer-sized droplets under rapid solidification conditions seems to be questionable if not impossible,13901 while experimental studies of micrometer-sized droplets under rapid solidification conditions are very difficult, and only inconclusive, sparse and scattered data are available. 

Possible measurement bias factors such as droplet deposition in the probe, droplet breakup and coalescence were studied. A simple criterion for minimizing measurement bias was proposed. The system can be used for both water and liquid-metal droplets. 

The frozen-drop technique was naturally adopted in measuring molten metal droplet size before any other methods became available. Similarly to the methods for normal liquids, the freeze-up and collection of molten metal droplets may be carried out in many different ways. For example, metal droplets can solidify during flight in gaseous or liquid medium in a spray chamber. 13H51 The solidified particles are subsequently sieved to obtain the size distribution. 

Turnbull and Cech [58] analyzed the solidification of small metal droplets in sizes ranging from 10 to 300 xm and concluded that in a wide selection of metals the minimum isothermal crystallization temperature was only a function of supercooling and not of droplet size. Later, it was found that the frequency of droplet nucleation was indeed a function of not only crystallization temperature but also of droplet size, since the probability of nucleation increases with the dimension of the droplet [76]. However, for low molecular weight substances the size dependence of the homogeneous nucleation temperature is very weak [77-80]. 

Apparently, the direct transition from vapor to solid is less common than the double transition vapor — liquid — solid, see, e.g., Refs.158-160). From the rate of solidification of metal droplets (average diameter near 0.005 cm) at temperatures 60° to 370° below their normal melting points, the 7sl was concluded158) to be, for instance, 24 for mercury, 54 for tin, and 177 erg/cm2 for copper. For this calculation it was necessary to assume that each crystal nucleus was a perfect sphere embedded in the melt droplet the improbability of this model was emphasized above. 

Solution-Liquid-Solid (SLS) growth of semiconductor nanowires by Wang etal. (2006). The synthesis proceeds by a solution-based catalysed growth mechanism in which nanometer-scale metallic droplets catalyse the decomposition of metallo-organic precursors and crystalline nanowire growth. 

In general, color emitters used as components of pyrolants are metallic compounds rather than metal particles. Metal particles agglomerate to form liquid metal droplets and liberation of metal atoms in flames occurs only at the surface of the droplets. On the other hand, metallic compounds decompose at relahvely low temperatures compared with metal particles and liberate dispersed metal atoms. Table 12.5 shows typical salts used to obtain emissions of the requisite colors. 

In the second scheme, the metal boiling point is greater than that of the oxide and the model suggests that reaction occurs at the metal droplet surface when the vaporised droplet is said to be surrounded by a bubble of molten metal oxide, as in Figure 5.7. 

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