Liquid sodium power - article in SCR 57

[tom spettel]

While reading another great issue of the SCR i was reading
Tom Dougherty's Underway on Liquid Sodium Power. I was wondering.. if sodium is nothing more than salt... how can it be a metal?? and it reacts violently with water and will ignite
in the presence of atmospheric oxygen?!?!?!?!? whats up with this stuff!!
Tom

[interpol]

Sodium is not salt. Sodium

Sodium is not salt. Sodium Chloride is salt. Huge difference.

Sodium is an alkalai metal, along with lithium, potassium, rubidium, cesium, and francium. The alkalai metals only have one electron in their outer shell, meaning that they desperately want one more(means they are very reactive). Sodium is actually one of the LESSER reactive metals in that group. Some are more reactive with water than sodium is, some are not, but you can buy sodium online for about $100-150 for 500gms. As far as liquid sodium, I would assume it's just melted sodium.

I have actually toyed with underwater gas powered torpedoes that use sodium as an explosive charge (made a special cap for it, it was awesome, should have taken pictures BEFORE launch, never launched from sub, just lauched out of test tube in pool). Unfortunately, the sodium proves a little unpredictable in its patterns of explosions, therefore a little to dangerous for recreational use. Sometimes the chunk of sodium I used would shoot into the air, only to land in the pool a second later to explode again.

[safrole]

Sometimes the chunk of sodium

Sometimes the chunk of sodium I used would shoot into the air, only to land in the pool a second later to explode again.

Where is the video?!! I would LOVE to watch that happen.

Can you share any other details about those torpedoes? Like what the bodies were made of, how they were propelled, etc. Did the charge destroy the torpedo? How big of a chunk was it and how much *pop*?

[tom spettel]

Interpol thanks for the info!

Interpol thanks for the info! sounds like a fun project you did
with the sodium I was looking to do something with torps
to but i was looking for something along the lines of alkaseltzer.
Tom

[interpol]

I wish I had video,

I wish I had video, it was something I didn't think about until the sodium was all gone.

The topredoes were basically propel powered, a little longer than the ones you typically see everyone using, and actually had a bit more pressure.

I had a hard time devising a way to hold sodium away from water until it hit something, and I had a lot of different tries. I first tried a plunger type system, but it didn't get enough water in to contact the sodium quickly enough.

The next version used something kind of like a diaphragm, but same result. Not enough contact with water simultaneously.

The last and final attempt was making the nose cone into two halves, seperated lengthways.
*please excuse the quality of the pictures, I did them in ms paint and I did them in thirty seconds to illustrate*
*nevermind what this picture looks like, its a torpedo tip you sick puppies*


There was a small metal shaft protuding from the tip, which was connected to two shafts on the inside of the tip. I sealed the tip with a light coating of RTV on the joints only, making sure not to get any excess all over, because I needed a water tight seal that could be broken easily.

*diagram of how shafts are connected*




When the torpedo hit something, it pushed the metal shaft in, causing the other two shafts to extend just enough to crack open the tip, and let water rush in, making a nice little *pop*


Pros----Explosive torpedos, no more needs to be said.

Cons---Too inconsistent reactions, sometimes one big reaction, sometimes several smaller reactions, sometimes tip would not open at all.

All in all it was a fun experiment, and I haven't ruled out using sodium as a reagent in my dream of a RC Submarine with actual exploding torpedos, but as for now, it remains a dream. If anyone else takes up on this where I left off, please post findings.

[interpol]

Oh, sorry to leave this

Oh, sorry to leave this out, the main body of the torpedo was still intact(the part where the gas and floats are held), but the tip is obliterated on a good explosion. It is a pain in the ###, because they are not easy to make.

Maybe someone could devise a way to mass produce them with some alumilite or something, that would be cool.

[PaulC]

With all the explosion inconsistancies

With all the explosion inconsistancies and gas power, sounds like a great scale Mark 14!

[safrole]

With all the explosion inconsistancies

With all the explosion inconsistancies and gas power, sounds like a great scale Mark 14!

Paul, that's genius!