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Playing the “bad guy” to enhance next-generation safety
Sometimes, cops and robbers is more than just a kid’s game. At the Department of Energy’s national laboratories, researchers are channeling their inner saboteurs to discover vulnerabilities in next-generation nuclear reactors, making sure that they’re as safe as possible before they’re even constructed.
Robert C. Cook
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 51 | Number 4 | May 2007 | Pages 559-563
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST07-A1444
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this paper we show that the ambient temperature measured leakage time constant, RT, is related to the leakage at cryogenic temperature, RC, byRC = 0.23DTVsh/RTwhere DT is the density of cryogenic DT vapor, and Vsh is the internal volume of the shell. We then calculate the size of voids that may result from leakage at the Be/DT interface, depending upon the number of leakage sites and RT. Even for the slowest leakers the potential void growth is excessive. Reasons that voids have not been seen in DT layering experiments to date include the lack of a technique to see isolated micronish bubbles, however possible mechanisms preventing void formation are also discussed.