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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
R. A. Bajura, A. H. Mace, Jr.
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 63 | Number 1 | May 1977 | Pages 63-74
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE77-A27005
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The effects of structural vibration on the pressure and velocity fields of a two-dimensional channel flow are examined in terms of three dimensionless parameters related to the amplitude and frequency of vibration and the frictional pressure losses in the channel. Pressure-flow characteristics for the pumping system supplying fluid to the channel are varied between the extremes of the constant flow rate and constant pressure-drop modes of operation. The constant flow rate mode exhibits a larger response to the vibrating wall motion than the constant pressure-drop mode of operation. Structural motion is shown to alter both the time-averaged and dynamic pressure and velocity fields in the channel compared to the steady flow values. Pressure eddies that scale on the order of the structural dimensions arise due to the interaction of the vibrating channel wall with the mean flow field. These eddies have dimensions in between the scales of boundary layer eddies and acoustic eddies and therefore can be significant in exciting large structural vibrations in the fundamental mode through a feedback effect. The hydrodynamic mass associated with the structural vibration will be reduced due to the leakage of fluid out the ends of the channel. The effects of the wall vibration on the mean flow field should be considered for flows in narrow passages when estimating the fluid-structure inter-action forces due to the flow of a high-density fluid past a surface.