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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.
Yansong Liu, Taimin Yi, Kai Wang, Xiaobo Qi, Zhibing He
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 77 | Number 6 | August 2021 | Pages 454-462
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2021.1927622
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In indirect-drive inertial confinement fusion, thin films on laser entrance hole (LEH) windows are needed to reflect thermal infrared radiation (IR) and to protect the deuterium-tritium (D-T) cryogenic shell. In this paper, a set of ultrathin aluminum films deposited on freestanding polyimide as LEH windows were studied on optical properties in the IR band. The influences of thickness and gas pressure on the IR transmittivity of these films were examined. It was found that gas pressure plays an important role in the IR transmission and microstructure changes of LEH films because of elastic modulus mismatch between aluminum and polymide. It is undoubted that the aluminum/polymide film can block thermal IR and protect the D-T cryogenic shell when gas pressure is less than 20 KPa.
