Elemental Clustering and Structure of Liquid LBE

Abstract

Liquid Pb–Bi eutectic (LBE) alloy is of great interest as coolant and neutron spallation source for the accelerator driven systems (ADS). Scanning Photoemission Microscopy (SPEM) at the ELETTRA synchrotron radiation facility of Trieste was carried out on samples quenched from melt at different temperatures. SPEM analyses show that the two components (Pb and Bi) are not homogeneously distributed in the range of temperature from melting up to 518 °C, in particular they form clusters enriched in Pb and Bi. The cluster size decreases as temperature increases hence diffusion occurs between clusters and matrix leading to the progressive disgregation of clusters that is almost completed at 518 °C. Such micro-chemical evolution is accompanied by a structural change of the liquid evidenced by the results of High-temperature X-ray Diffraction (HT-XRD). In particular, radial distribution function (RDF) curves show a progressive change of the ratio between the shell radii of 1st and 2nd nearest neighbours.