In the process of uranium enrichment by gaseous diffusion, the scale of operation of the plant (e.g. barrier area, power consumption) is highly dependent on the single stage separation factor. The effect of the flow pattern on the separation factor is worth thorough investigation, because it may contribute to reducing the plant size by half.
In this paper the flow patterns of perfect mixing and cross-flow are analyzed exhaustively. The results should serve in estimating quantitatively any intermediate flow pattern between these two extreme cases.
Various flow patterns were realized by connecting in series 1-10 pieces of barrier made of sintered nickel, and extremely good separation effect was obtained with cross-flow, as verified by experiments in isotope separation made on nitrogen gas. The applicability of the present analysis to the estimation of intermediate flow patterns has also been demonstrated. Cases of counter-current flow and parallel flow can be dealt with similarly to cross-flow.
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