ON THE ISSUE OF INCREASING THE SEPARATION CAPACITY OF A GAS CENTRIFUGE

Abstract

Despite careful optimization, the separation capacity of gas centrifuges (GC) has always been less than the upper limit determined by the Dirac formula. It was recently shown that this limit was greatly overestimated. Nevertheless, the separation capacity of modern GC remains several times lower than the upper limit specified by us. The purpose of this work is to identify the causes of the separation capacity deficit and identify measures that would increase it. Our analysis shows that the suppression of separation occurs in rarefied regions of the gas, where the rate of radial diffusion exceeds the rate of axial convection. This leads to a solid-state concentration distribution and suppression of separation. We assumed that an increase in the density of the mass flow in a sparse region should lead to an increase in the separation capacity of GC. In the direct-flow GC model, we obtained an increase in the separation capacity of the optimal GC to a value only three times less than the Dirac upper limit due to an increase in the density of the mass flow in a sparse region.