The influence of shell effects on fusion of mid-mass nuclei is explored using isotopic chains of K and Ar ions on an oxygen target. Comparison of the reduced excitation functions reveals that the fusion cross section for the open neutron-shell projectile nuclei ${}^{41}\mathrm{K}$ and ${}^{45}\mathrm{K}$ is systematically larger than for the closed neutron-shell projectiles ${}^{39}\mathrm{K}$ and ${}^{47}\mathrm{K}$. The São Paulo fusion model using matter densities from systematics fails to describe the measured excitation functions. Use of more realistic densities from a Dirac-Hartree-Bogoliubov (DHB) approach performs significantly better though it still overpredicts the closed-shell nuclei.

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• Low & intermediate energy heavy-ion reactions
• Models & methods for nuclear reactions
• Nuclear fusion
• Unstable nuclei induced nuclear reactions
• 39 ≤ A ≤ 58