RESPONSE OF THE PIPE AND GROUND IN THE PACKARD NUCLEAR EFFECTS TEST

摘要

The experiment in Packard to measure the response of the LOS pipe and the ground to the stress wave generated by the explosion of the nuclear device resulted in three principal findings.nThe bolts securing the mated flanges in the line-of-sight (LOS) pipe immediately above the upper HE machine were severed, not by the stress wave generated by the nuclear explosion, but by the stress wave generated by the explosion of the HE. This allowed gas to diffuse from below into the section of pipe above the machine. If the ball valves above and the fastgate at the surface had not closed, this failure of the flange bolts would have resulted in a serious leakage of radioactive material. The discovery that the flange bolts on the LOS pipe had been severed by the HE machine, a defect to be avoided in design of LOS pipes, came as a surprise.