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Review of the gas centrifuge until 1962. Part II: Principles of high-speed rotation

Stanley Whitley

Stanley Whitley

  • British Nuclear Fuels Limited, Capenhurst Works, Chester, England

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Rev. Mod. Phys. 56, 67 – Published 1 January, 1984

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/RevModPhys.56.67

Abstract

The principles of the separation physics of the gas centrifuge were described in Part I of this review. In this second section the principles involved in spinning the rotors of these centrifuges are described. Three types of rotor can be identified, depending on the ratio of length to diameter. If the rotor is very short, length-diameter ratio less than one, it is gyroscopically stable and easy to spin. If the length-diameter ratio is in the region of 4 or 5, the rotor behaves as a rigid body and is relatively easy to accelerate to speed; however, it has a tendency at full speed to exhibit gyroscopic precessions. Finally, if the length-diameter ratio is very large, the rotor becomes easy to stabilize gyroscopically, but it is difficult to get it to speed because long rotors are very flexible and have resonant frequencies of flexure lower than the operating speed. The problems of these three types of centrifuge (the rotor dynamics, the bearings used to support the rotor, and the stress analysis of the rotating components) were investigated in the last century as part of classical mechanics because of the emergence of steam turbines during the latter part of the industrial revolution. These early principles are briefly reviewed, with particular reference to the work of De Laval, who invented the principle of self-balancing, Reynolds and Evershed, who developed hydrodynamic and magnetic bearing, respectively, and Chree, who did the most extensive early work on the stress analysis of tubes and discs. The work is described as it applies to the centrifuges developed in America and Germany during the war and in the Soviet Union after the war. The work of Beams in America is described in most detail, since he and his colleagues developed all three types of centrifuge during the Manhattan Project. The other work described is that of Groth and Beyerle, who developed subcritical machines in Germany during the war, and of Steenbeck and Zippe, who helped to develop both subcritical and supercritical centrifuges in the Soviet Union after the war. Little of this latter work has been published, but Zippe redeveloped the subcritical machine at the University of Virginia. The description of this machine concludes the present review.

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Rev. Mod. Phys. 56, 67– Published 1 January, 1984

    © 1984 American Physical Society

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