Enrichment cascades

Solve matched-abundance-ratio cascades interactively.

Nucleide solves matched-abundance-ratio cascades (MARCs) for multicomponent isotope mixtures. The cascade separates a feed stream into an enriched product stream and a depleted tails stream.

Cascade specification

A cascade is defined by:

• Overall stage separation factor $\alpha > 1$.
• Mass separation factor $M^*$ between the enriching key $j$ and stripping key $k$.
• Target assays of the key nuclide in the feed ($x_F$), product ($x_P$), and tails ($x_T$).
• Initial guesses for the number of enriching stages $N$ and stripping stages $M$.

For a nuclide of mass $M_i$, the per-stage separation factor is

Stream mass ratios

From assay conservation the product-to-feed and tails-to-feed ratios are

Interactive solver

Adjust the assays and separation parameters, then click Solve cascade. The Optimize M* button runs the multicomponent solver that chooses $M^*$ to minimize total inter-stage flow. After solving, the stage-profile chart shows the ideal-cascade assay of the enriching key across the stripping and enriching sections.

See also

• Tutorial: Enrichment cascade
• Theory: Enrichment cascades
• Crate docs: crates/enrichment/src/cascade.rs