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MIT professor develops method to verify compliance with Outer Space Treaty
Danagoulian
Areg Danagoulian of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is proposing a mechanism for verifying that Earth-orbiting satellites are in compliance with the Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits the placement of nuclear weapons in space. Danagoulian’s “concept and feasibility study,” titled “Verification of the Outer Space Treaty with cosmic protons,” was published recently in the journal Nature.
Luis Alva, Xinyu Huang (Univ of South Carolina), George Jacobsen (General Atomics)
Proceedings | 2018 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants (ICAPP 2018) | Charlotte, NC, April 8-11, 2018 | Pages 598-604
The nuclear fuel cladding undergoes severe thermal shock during reflooding of the nuclear core after a loss of coolant accident (LOCA). The purpose of this work is to evaluate the resistance of SiCf-SiCm composite cladding to such thermal shock events. In order to achieve this goal, a nuclear grade SiCf-SiCm composite tube, manufactured by General Atomics (GA), was quenched from an outer surface temperature of 1000 ºC into room temperature (RT) water and hot water. The composite tube was heated by a tungsten rod placed inside the tubular sample to simulate the fuel pellet. The tungsten rod was heated to a centerline temperature of 1400 ºC by an induction coil. To monitor the progressive damage of the SiCf-SiCm composite tube, the acoustic emission (AE) technique is used to acquire the acoustic signals during the test. The samples quenched into RT water showed visible cracks while the sample quenched in hot water did not. Some of the AE signals are related to cracks in the material during quenching. After quenching, the burst strength of the SiCf-SiCm composite tube is measured using a bladder technique. Results show that the SiCf-SiCm composite tube retains more than 88% of its strength after quenching.