An experimental study on the explosion process of high-temperature molten tin liquid contacted with water

To study the explosion mechanism and the energy conversion process of the interaction between low melting point metal tin and water, a visual experiment platform is built to monitor the contact reaction processes at different mass ratios of tin to water, e.g., 5, 10, 15 and 20. The platform consists of a high-frequency melting furnace, a high-speed camera, signal collectors and other equipment. Meanwhile, high melting point metal aluminum is selected for comparative experiments under the same experimental conditions to explore the differences in reaction characteristics between low melting point metal tin and high melting point metal aluminum during the steam explosion. Some mathematical calculation models are established to quantitatively analyze the shock wave energy in line with the law of conservation and explosive shock theory. The results show that two steam explosions are triggered when molten tin reacted with water at a mass ratio 5; and in the comparative explosion experiments of molten tin with water and molten aluminum with water under the same experimental conditions, the reaction intensity and the duration during the explosion of molten metal with water are respectively related to the degree of fragmentation and thermal diffusivity. In addition, the calculation indicates that about 0.45% to 10.91% of the heat energy stored in the molten tin is converted into the explosion shock wave energy throughout the steam explosions. Moreover, the shock wave energy conversion ratio is affected by the mass ratio; and this effect is reflected in that the energy conversion ratio of the shock wave first increases and then decreases with the increase in mass ratio; when the mass ratio is 10, the energy conversion ratio is the largest. It is also found in comparison experiments that the shock wave energy conversion ratios in the explosion experiments of tin reacting with water are higher than the shock wave energy conversion ratios in the explosion experiments of aluminum reacting with water when the mass ratio is less than 12.69. © 2023 Explosion and Shock Waves. All rights reserved.