Steven J. Pemberton, Ryan P. Abbott, and Per F. Peterson
The use of swirling flow in annular liquid jets can protect beam line solid materials of HYLIFE-II plants for Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) applications. The annular jet, called a vortex tube, is simply constructed by injecting liquid tangent to the inner surface of a pipe with both axially and azimuthally directed velocity. A layer of liquid then lines the pipe wall, providing a protective barrier against fusion neutrons and debris entering from the IFE target chamber. Vortex tubes have been constructed with thickness of one-fifth the pipe radius. Analysis of the flow is given, along with experimental examples of vortex tube behavior and an estimate of the layer thickness from both analytic and experimental methods.
