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Chernobyl at 40 years: Looking back at Nuclear News
Sunday, April 26, at 1:23 a.m. local time will mark 40 years since the most severe nuclear accident in history: the meltdown of Unit 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union.
In the ensuing four decades, countless books, documentaries, articles, and conference sessions have examined Chernobyl’s history and impact from various angles. There is a similar abundance of outlooks in the archives of Nuclear News, where hundreds of scientists, advocates, critics, and politicians have shared their thoughts on Chernobyl over the years. Today, we will take a look at some highlights from the pages of NN to see how the story of Chernobyl evolved over the decades.
Abdelaziz Bouchikhi
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 79 | Number 2 | February 2023 | Pages 168-178
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2022.2136924
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A detailed study on the capacitively coupled radio-frequency (CCRF) argon discharge with metastable atom density and the effect pressure has been undertaken. Specifically, dielectric layers of borosilicate glass and alumina were introduced to the discharge to examine their influence on the discharge characteristics and to study the properties of the plasma. A model for the argon plasma based on the three moments of the Boltzmann equation together with the Poisson equation was used. The properties of the argon plasma presented are based on the averaged cycle, especially the electron temperature, the electric potential, and the metastable atom density. The electron temperature and the metastable atom density decreased in the presence of the dielectric layers, whereas the electric potential had a high value. Sensitivity analysis showed that the surface charge concentrations on the borosilicate glass and alumina dielectrics and the gap voltage increased with the increase of the relative permittivity; the plasma parameters also increased with increasing gap voltage.