Expected result of firing an ICE load on Z without vacuum.

Technical Report · Thu Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2010

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1002105· OSTI ID:1002105

Savage, Mark Edward; Struve, Kenneth William; Lemke, Raymond William

In addressing the issue of the determining the hazard categorization of the Z Accelerator of doing Special Nuclear Material (SNM) experiments the question arose as to whether the machine could be fired with its central vacuum chamber open, thus providing a path for airborne release of SNM materials. In this report we summarize calculations that show that we could only expect a maximum current of 460 kA into such a load in a long-pulse mode, which will be used for the SNM experiments, and 750 kA in a short-pulse mode, which is not useful for these experiments. We also investigated the effect of the current for both cases and found that for neither case is the current high enough to either melt or vaporize these loads, with a melt threshold of 1.6 MA. Therefore, a necessary condition to melt, vaporize, or otherwise disperse SNM material is that a vacuum must exist in the Z vacuum chamber. Thus the vacuum chamber serves as a passive feature that prevents any airborne release during the shot, regardless of whatever containment may be in place.

• Research Organization: Sandia National Laboratories
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: AC04-94AL85000
• OSTI ID: 1002105
• Report Number(s): SAND2010-4671
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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