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A year in orbit: ISS deployment tests radiation detectors for future space missions
The predawn darkness on a cool Florida night was shattered by the ignition of nine Merlin engines on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The thrust of the engines shook the ground miles away. From a distance, the rocket appeared to slowly rise above the horizon. For the cargo onboard, the launch was anything but gentle, as the ignition of liquid oxygen generated more than 1.5 million pounds of force. After the rocket had been out of sight for several minutes, the booster dramatically returned to Earth with several sonic booms in a captivating show of engineering designed to make space travel less expensive and more sustainable.
Linjun Xie, Changxun Wang, Wei Zhang, Xin Shen, Minglei Hu, Chunhua Bian, Yilun Xu
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 196 | Number 2 | February 2022 | Pages 221-233
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2021.1964325
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Nuclear power pipeline ice plug technology, as the main technical method of nuclear power safety maintenance and innovative design, plays a protective role in the long-term safe operation of nuclear power plants. During the ice plug process, pipelines have complex stress states, which can easily lead to problems such as material yielding, cracking, and even damage. In this study, by building an ice plug test platform for nuclear power pipelines, an ice plug test and a numerical analysis of nuclear power pipelines are carried out to explore the stress distribution of nuclear power pipelines during the ice plug process and its impact on the performance of pipeline materials and to analyze the safety of pipelines in the ice plug process. This study shows that the distribution of stress in the pipeline during ice plug is related to the temperature change and cooling rate of the pipe wall. The stress distribution in different parts is uneven, and the maximum stress appears near the edge of the jacket. According to the temperature data of the pipe wall, the stress distribution of the pipe wall can be obtained by the finite element method. From the test and finite element results, it can be seen that when the frost line length of the pipeline is less than 200 mm, the pipeline ice plug method is safe and feasible.