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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.
Kazuyuki Takase, Tomoaki Kunugi, Yasushi Seki
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 30 | Number 3 | December 1996 | Pages 1459-1464
Safety and Environment | doi.org/10.13182/FST96-A11963154
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
As one of thermofluid safety studies in ITER, buoyancy-driven exchange flow behavior through breaches of the vacuum vessel was investigated quantitatively using a preliminary LOVA (Loss Of VAcuum event) apparatus which simulated the Tokamak vacuum vessel of a fusion reactor with a small-scaled model. Helium gas and air were used as the working fluids. Experimental parameters were breach position, breach number, breach length, breach diameter, breach combination and the wall temperature of the VV. The present study showed that the relationship between the exchange rate and time depended on the magnitude of the potential energy from the ground level to the breach position and the wall temperature of the vacuum vessel. The exchange rate decreased as the breach length increased and the breach diameter decreased.