Model of intensive inter-phase interaction between high temperature melt and cold volatile fluid

The fragmentation of the molten metal drop in the cold volatile liquid was studied. Two cases of water surface temperature were investigated: a—lower than its critical meaning during direct contact with melt, and b—higher than the critical one. The criterion determining existence of the fragmentation was presented for the first case. In the second case, that is being more complicated, possibility of the direct contact between the surrounding liquid and the melted metal surface and development of the instability on both surfaces were studied. It was shown that the fragmentation mechanism for the second case is strongly dependent on the characteristic time of the direct water–melt contact. The characteristic time must be sufficient enough for liquid water to interact with the melt before generation of the vapor layer between two surfaces. The process that follows the contact of water with the melted metal and a high pressure region formation was considered. The fragmentation mechanism, based on the analogy with the known problem, when a body with a flat circular nose impacts upon a flat liquid surface, was presented. Mean velocity and mean width of the generated jets from the melt surface were calculated.