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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.
Young Su Na, Song-Won Cho, Kwang Soon Ha
Nuclear Technology | Volume 195 | Number 3 | September 2016 | Pages 329-334
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-160
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This study evaluated the hydrogen issue in the initial operation of a filtered containment venting system (FCVS). We calculated the volumetric concentration of hydrogen, steam, and air in the postulated FCVS connected with the OPR 1000, as a target nuclear power plant, under a station blackout using the MELCOR computer code (version 1.8.6). A large amount of steam and a flammable mixture generated during a severe accident are immediately released from the containment building to the FCVS when the pressure in the containment building approaches a set value. The constituent ratio of the flammable mixture of hydrogen, steam, and air can change due to the different thermal-hydraulic conditions between those due to a severe accident in the containment building and the initial condition in the FCVS. The volumetric concentration of hydrogen was 6% in the containment building just before the operation of the FCVS. It increased up to 9% in the FCVS vessel during the early operation, and steam condensation occurred simultaneously. The atmospheric condition including steam, hydrogen, and air in the FCVS can enter the combustion zone in the Shapiro diagram.