Compartments

Last month this site pondered spinning molten power for the Tory IV.

The idea was to keep the heat evenly distributed around the jet even if the power-supply was superheated such that it would liquify, thus sinking to the bottom in a constantly-moving aircraft. My idea (which, yea, I stole) was to rotate the metal. But that spinning fan will steal energy from the jet. It occurs to me tonight that I could mitigate the rotation if I compartmentalised the heated metals. Say, into thirds.

Now I have a new problem. Each compartment's wall needs not to melt, itself. So the compartments are probably some dense ceramic. That will, I think, keep the neutrons and all the other stuff from inter-reacting across compartments. It will depend on how fast the neutrons are going, I'm sure; but if a neutron is too fast for a ceramic wall it's also too fast for the next compartment over. Critical mass no longer critical, no longer melted.

I wasn't on the Tory II (or III) team so I don't know what they had in mind for the metals. But I can guess: PLUTOnium (239). They wanted lower critical-masses, and that's 10 kg. Curium, at 7 kg, is better but, I think, pricier.

Californium-252 (2.73 kg) might be the best substance to ensure liquid heat at the same time I've assigned it into compartments to keep it distributed.

UPDATE 7/27: Yeah, I know, this whole idea was completely dumb; thought-experiments usually are. Good thing this is a blog and not a university thesis. Tho': now I am pondering vapour Pluto...