Temperature Induced Flows in Gas Mixtures: Nuclear Applications in Space and Fuels

摘要

Thermal creep can be a dominant effect for mass and heat transfer in non-isothermal gases in low gravity environments. In order to design and operate fission reactors in these environments, good knowledge of this effect for xenon and helium gases in the fuel/clad gap is needed. Therefore, it is necessary to develop theory that accounts for thermal creep and other transport phenomena in the slip-flow regime and to conduct experimental measurements of these effects for various gases in pure and mixed state. At present there is very limited experimental data available to quantify these effects for the fuel gap gases. We report experimental measurements of the slip coefficients for a mixture of He:Xe at a mole ratio of 4:1 and assess the adequacy of various theoretical results and models.