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Latest News
WIPP improves utility shaft safety, begins infrastructure project
Harrison Western Shaft Sinkers (HWSS), the company drilling a new utility shaft at the Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, has retained a safety culture expert following a near-miss accident in the shaft late last year. The safety expert will conduct monthly facilitated discussions with crews working on the shaft to reinforce expectations for identifying concerns regarding unsafe circumstances, according to a recent report by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB).
Leif Holmlid
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 74 | Number 3 | October 2018 | Pages 219-228
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2017.1421366
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A generator for ultradense hydrogen H(0) also generates kaons, pions, and muons both spontaneously and after laser-pulse induction. The negative muons formed can be used to generate the well-studied muon-catalyzed nuclear fusion D + D process in deuterium gas D2. Both laser-induced and spontaneous neutron emissions are now observed from the generator by commercial neutron detectors. Thermalization with polyethylene plastic blocks is used for the 6Li thermal neutron detectors (Kromek TN15 and Saint Gobain BC-702), which increases the signal rate; the background in the laboratory increases by a factor of 3. A laser-induced neutron signal is observed with D2 gas at pressure <1 bar. It is attributed to muon-catalyzed fusion by slow muons in the D2 gas at high D2 pressure. The size of the neutron signal is limited by the relatively inefficient moderation of the muons before their decay in the low D2 gas pressure used. With ordinary hydrogen H2 or p2 (protium), no fusion but only a low signal possibly from capture-generated neutrons is observed. This neutron signal in p2 gas is often temporarily depressed by the laser probably due to changes in the p(0) material. The spontaneous signal using p2 in the generator can be due to neutron-ejecting capture processes caused by muons formed spontaneously in the generator, while the spontaneous signal with D2 may be due to muon-catalyzed fusion as well as capture processes.