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Potassium bubbles in tungsten wire

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Abstract

Tungsten filaments for incandescent lamps almost always contain potassium bubbles. These are required to produce the interlocking grain structure that gives the tungsten lamp filament a long life. In this article, we consider the formation of the bubbles from the ellipsoids of potassium produced by deformation, the growth of these bubbles as a result of internal pressure created by the potassium vapor within the bubbles, and the reasons why these bubbles can sometimes grow to very large sizes. In each case, we present a simple model to describe the process. We finally use nucleation theory to describe the overall process of bubble growth.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research and Development Center, General Electric Company, 12301, Schenectady, NY

    C. L. Briant (Staff Metallurgist)

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  1. C. L. Briant
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Formerly Visiting Scientist, Institute for Technical Physics, Hungarian Academy of Science, Budapest, Hungary

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Briant, C.L. Potassium bubbles in tungsten wire. Metall Trans A 24, 1073–1084 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02657238

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02657238

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