Introduction to Nuclear Propulsion: Lecture 15 - Nuclear Test Operations

The test operation of nuclear power plants, specifically nuclear rockets, bears some interesting similarities to the operation of chemical rocket tests as well as, of course, many differences. A significant feature common to both nuclear and chemical rocket tests is that all the fuel for the entire operation is loaded at the start of the test. As a direct consequence of this fact, the operation of nuclear power plants must be surrounded with adequate safety precautions, as is indeed the case in the operation of chemical rockets, A second direct consequence is that in both types of testing a very thorough and complete checkout is made before starting the test

Complementary monostable circuits achieve low power drain and high reliability

Two-transistor multivibrator has minimum power dissipation and maximum reliability. It minimizes the use of components that are subject to environmental changes or other unpredictable behavior

Plug replaces weld filler as seal in complex casting

Expandable metal plug is inserted to provide a seal to support the mold core with small blocks, referred to as chaplets, during the casting of a complex volute. Weld-warpage and multiple X ray inspection are eliminated by use of this technique

Variable voltage supply uses Zener dioxide as reference

Using a zener diode as the reference element, a simple transistorized circuit provides a stable variable reference voltage

An evaluation of the analytic continuation by duality technique

In Nucl. Phys. B391 (1993) 127, the value of the oblique correction parameter S for walking technicolor theories was estimated using a technique called Analytic Continuation by Duality (ACD). We apply the ACD technique to the perturbative vacuum polarization function and find that it fails to reproduce the well known result S=1/6\pi. This brings into question the reliability of the ACD technique and the ACD estimate of S.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX, 1 postscript figure. Uses cite.sty, sprocl.sty, and epsfig.sty. Talk presented at the 1996 International Workshop on Perspectives of Strong Coupling Gauge Theories (SCGT'96), 13-16 Nov. 1996, Nagoy

Critical behavior of the Widom-Rowlinson mixture: coexistence diameter and order parameter

The critical behavior of the Widom-Rowlinson mixture [J. Chem. Phys. 52, 1670 (1970)] is studied in d=3 dimensions by means of grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations. The finite size scaling approach of Kim, Fisher, and Luijten [Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 065701 (2003)] is used to extract the order parameter and the coexistence diameter. It is demonstrated that the critical behavior of the diameter is dominated by a singular term proportional to t^(1-alpha), with t the relative distance from the critical point, and alpha the critical exponent of the specific heat. No sign of a term proportional to t^(2beta) could be detected, with beta the critical exponent of the order parameter, indicating that pressure-mixing in this model is small. The critical density is measured to be rho*sigma^3 = 0.7486 +/- 0.0002, with sigma the particle diameter. The critical exponents alpha and beta, as well as the correlation length exponent nu, are also measured and shown to comply with d=3 Ising criticality