Experiments and Design Considerations toward a Novel Continuous Flow Aluminum Fuel Reactor for Underwater Vehicles

Abstract

Presented here is experiments and design consideration toward the development of an activated bulk aluminum slurry and liquid water reactor. Previous work has shown successful activation of bulk aluminum for 99% successful oxidation with water. However, this reaction has only been seen in bulk reactors with only a bit of progress toward slurry reactors

Several experiments were conducted over the semester. The results for high-pressure activated aluminum showed a positive correlation between initial pressure and reactivity. This trend held for both experimental results for the BB form and the slurry form. Experiments on the development of a homogenous slurry showed that a higher shear rate mixer and double the amount of fumed silica were needed to produce a homogenous non-clumping aluminum slurry. Lastly, pumping experiments, unfortunately, showed that in its current state, the fuel cannot be reliably pumped due to the settling of the aluminum inside the piping. Solutions are discussed to overcome the issues seen while pumping.

Among other contributions, a theoretical reactor design is presented that hopes to eliminate issues with jamming seen during experimentations. Future hope is that with the contributions found in this paper, further work can be done to successfully engineer a continuous flow aluminum slurry reactor for a wide array of applications.