Fragmentation of suddenly heated liquids.

Fragmentation of free liquids in Inertial Confinement Fusion reactors could determine the upper bound on reactor pulse rate. The x-ray ablated materials must cool and recondense to allow driver beam propagation. The increased surface area caused by fragmentation will enhance the cooling and condensation rates. Relaxation from the suddenly heated state will move a liquid into the negative pressure region under the liquid-vapor P-V dome. The lithium equation of state was used to demonstrate that neutron-induced vaporization uses only a minor fraction of the added heat, much less than would be required to drive the expansion. A 77% expansion of the lithium is required before the rapid vaporization process of spinodal decomposition could begin, and nucleation and growth are too slow to contribute to the expansion.