Self-Triggering Mechanism of Vapor Explosions for a Molten Tin and Water System

Abstract

The self-triggering mechanism of vapor explosions was investigated analytically and experimentally using molten tin and water. First, we modeled a simple droplet system consisting of a hot liquid droplet in a pool of cold liquid. Then, to model the self-triggering mechanism, we assumed that an instability (i.e. perturbed oscillation) in the vapor/cold-liquid interface produces a collapse of the vapor film, which in turn would produce a vapor explosion. To investigate the stability of perturbed oscillations in a vapor film, we did a linear stability analysis of a vapor film surrounding a hot liquid. We found that there was a region of film stability in the cold-liquid temperature where spontaneous vapor explosions did not occur. To validate our model, we experimentally determined the thermal interaction zone (TIZ) in which spontaneous vapor explosions occur. The occurrence conditions for spontaneous vapor explosions were investigated for molten tin, as the hot liquid, dropped into a water pool, as the cold...