EXPERIMENT RESEARCH ON EXPLOSION PROCESS OF HIGH-TEMPERATURE MOLTEN ALUMINUM IN CONTACT WITH WATER

A test system is designed to reveal the explosive mechanism of the interaction between high-temperature molten aluminum and water. The thermal infrared imager, the high-speed camera, the pressure transducer, and other related devices are used to monitor the interaction between high-temperature molten aluminum and water, to reveal the external morphology change, temperature field change, and phase transformation process of aluminum droplets after high-temperature molten aluminum contact with water. The experiment results show that film boiling occurs instantly when the high-temperature molten aluminum contacts with water. The shock produced by vigorous vaporization of water causes disturbance and expands rapidly, accelerating the fragmentation of aluminum droplets at high temperature and increasing the contact area between aluminum droplets and water. After 40 ms, film boiling is transformed to core boiling until the explosion and splashing occurs. Thermal conductivity, thermal radiation, and convection effects produced by the interaction between high-temperature molten aluminum and water increase the temperature around the pool. Temperatures rise faster directly above the pool, followed by areas between 50 cm and 100 cm away from the pool. The temperature right above the pool reaches the maximum temperature of 866.7 degrees C at 510 ms. The high-temperature molten aluminum splashes around the pool due to the explosion, which leads to a high temperature. The high temperature occurs instantly in the area between 50 cm and 100 cm from the pool and reaches 370 degrees C. The overall temperature within 100 cm away from the pool is higher than 100 degrees C. According to the energy conservation, explosion shock theory integrated with the experimental results, there are about 3.34% to 11.23% of the potential thermal energy of high-temperature molten aluminum converted into explosive shock wave energy in the contact of high-temperature molten aluminum with water.