Neutron Emission from Cryogenically Cooled Metals Under Thermal Shock

Abstract

During the summer of 1991, intense neutron bursts were observed after temperature shocking titanium chips which had been saturated with deuterium gas. The titanium chips were cooled and loaded with deuterium at 77 K and then rapidly heated to 323 K. The rapid heating produces a large pressure increase inside the crystalline lattice of the host metal. An Event Timer/Counter (ETC) card was designed and developed which counted and kept a time distribution of the neutron pulses as they occurred from a helium-3 neutron counter embedded in a paraffin moderator [1]. The experiment produced copious neutron counts. During one cooling and heating cycle, over 2 million neutrons were counted over a 5 min time period. In subsequent cooling and heating cycles using the same titanium chips, significant neutron bursts were observed with diminishing counts after each subsequent cycle. This paper will discuss the 1991 experiments and the status of ongoing experiments. .