Eur. Phys. J. B 79, 107-113 (2011)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2010-10700-1

Homogeneous bubble nucleation limit of mercury under the normal working conditions of the planned European spallation neutron source

¹ KFKI Atomic Energy Research Institute, POB 49, 1525 Budapest, Hungary
² National Science Center, Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology, Academician Str. 1, 61108 Kharkov, Ukraine
³ Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, ul. Joliot-Curie 6, 141980 Dubna, Russia
⁴ Institut für Physik der Universität Rostock, Wismarsche Str. 43-45, 18051 Rostock, Germany

Corresponding author: ^a barnai@aeki.kfki.hu

Received: 13 September 2010
Revised: 3 November 2010
Published online: 21 December 2010

Abstract

In spallation neutron sources, liquid mercury, upon adsorbing the proton beam, is exhibited to large thermal and pressure shocks. These local changes in the state of mercury can cause the formation of unstable bubbles in the liquid, which can damage at their collapse the enclosing the liquid solid material. While there are methods to deal with the pressure shock, the local temperature shock cannot be avoided. In our paper we calculated the work of the critical cluster formation (for mercury micro-bubbles) together with the rate of their formation (nucleation rate). It is shown that the homogeneous nucleation rates are very low at the considered process conditions even after adsorbing several proton pulses, therefore, the probability of temperature induced homogeneous bubble nucleation is negligible.