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Fusion Science and Technology
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WIPP: Lessons in transportation safety
As part of a future consent-based approach by the federal government to site new deep geologic repositories for nuclear waste, local communities and states that are considering hosting such facilities are sure to have many questions. Currently, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico is the only example of such a repository in operation, and it offers the opportunity for state and local officials to visit and judge for themselves the risks and benefits of hosting a similar facility. But its history can also provide lessons for these officials, particularly the political process leading up to the opening of WIPP, the safety of WIPP operations and transportation of waste from generator facilities to the site, and the economic impacts the project has had on the local area of Carlsbad, as well as the rest of the state of New Mexico.
S. Bhandarkar, J. Reynolds, S. Letts, S. Baxamusa, E. Lindsey
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 63 | Number 2 | March-April 2013 | Pages 177-189
Technical Paper | Selected papers from 20th Target Fabrication Meeting, May 20-24, 2012, Santa Fe, NM, Guest Editor: Robert C. Cook | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-TFM20-33
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
It is well known that control of the intricate surface topography details of the ablator capsule over a wide range of modes is critical for inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Whereas considerable effort has been expended on making the ablator capsule rounder and smoother during its fabrication, it is only more recently that attention has been drawn to particulate contamination on the surface of the capsule that can also contribute to undesirable Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities. In this paper, we explore new methods for cleaning the soft polymeric capsule in the presence of the attached filltube just before its assembly into the final target. These constraints, in conjunction with the extremely demanding specification for the size and the number of particles allowed per specification, present unique challenges and require the implementation of specialized cleaning techniques. Here, we describe the strengths and limitations of these methods and lay out the platform for implementing these into production on the National Ignition Facility (NIF).