PROCESS TO CONTROL THE MOVEMENT OF PARTICLES DRAGGED IN A FLOW OF LIQUID METAL AND BATTERY

摘要

A method of controlling the movement of particles entrained in a liquid metal flowing along a confined flow path having a substantially horizontal base characterised by the steps of:- (1) disposing a first planar device within the flow path to cause the shedding of vortices downstream of the device so that particles having a predetermined range of terminal velocities are trapped within the vortices and agglomerated into clusters of particles. (2) causing the agglomerated particles to be sedimented either upwardly or downwardly and (3) establishing a flow pattern downstream of the first device in which the local Reynolds number decays to a value sufficiently lower than 103 to result in essentially laminar flow of the metal so as to minimise re-entrainment and subsequent break up of the agglomerated particles. g