Estimates of the nuclear design requirement for the Pechora-Kama Canal project
The Soviet Union is considering the use of nuclear emplosives to excavate a portion of the Pechora-Kama Canal to divert water from northward-flowing rivers into the Caspian Sea. The Soviets have provided a general description of the Canal project, but detailed analyses of the nuclear design, including yields and number of nuclear charges, have never been published. Estimates for the nuclear design based on three different approaches are presented. Because of the meager amount of data provided by Soviet scientists, a variety of assumptions, based on U.S. experience, regarding media properties and design parameters have been made. The resulting estimates are strongly dependent upon these assumptions. Reasonable sets of assumptions can be found which lead to results in agreement with the published Soviet estimates for the total yield and total number of explosives. The results also indicate that the nuclear canal can be constructed, under most assumptions, to meet all identified Soviet criteria using only nuclear explosives with yields less than or equal to 150 kt.
- Research Organization:
- California Univ., Livermore (USA). Lawrence Livermore Lab.
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 6426786
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-52635
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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