Thesis. 1976. M.S. cn--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Nuclear Engineering. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND SCIENCE. / Includes bibliographical references. / M.S.cn

No description available.

No description available.

One of the activities conducted by state fire supervision authorities is the investigation of the cause of fires (ZPP) and one of its areas is explosions. These cases are requiring investigators to have very specific knowledge. The intention of the MV-GŘ HZS ČR is to create updated methodological material for ZPP, which will include a section devoted to the investigation of explosions. A major source of information for the creation of this material was the American guide NFPA 921. My goal was to collect Czech and foreign material dealing with different aspects of explosions, to compare this information with the content of NFPA 921 and determine the usability of these sources for the planned methodological manual. The research question was whether current conditions for ZPP and its procedures are adequate for HZS ČR investigators in the case of explosions. I also processed data on explosions using the Incident Statistics/Response Reports (SSU/ZOZ) program. Processed data created a picture of the development of these cases in ČR. The following findings emerged from that process: the number of cases has continued to increase and the dominant area where explosions occur in, is housing. In all areas the dominant cause is human negligence. The most frequent types of explosions are gas explosions. Explosions of flammable liquid vapour dominate the number of deaths as a direct consequence. When comparing the information in Czech material with NFPA 921, discrepancies were found in the values of the properties in the tables. With the modification the information in NFPA 921 is usable for the Czech manual. When confronted with statistical outputs, the shortcomings of the topics in NFPA 921 emerge. The investigative procedures are focus largely on explosions of considerable scope. These cases form a tiny percentage in ČR and their application is limited. There is a lack of concrete information on their most common causes. Thus NFPA 921, together with Czech material, is primarily of use as a general overview. In view of these facts, I have concluded that the information base and conditions required for ZPP are not adequate for HZS ČR investigators. The text presented in the results section of this work is designed to fill this gap of ZPP and can be used as the basis for the creation of the planned methodological manual.

Cette étude traite de la détonation et de la Transition Déflagration Détonation, TDD, en conduite dans les mélanges binaires H2/C3H8-Air. L'accent est mis sur les mécanismes d'accélération de flamme en présence d'obstacles. Les grandeurs caractéristiques de détonation autonome (célérité, pression et taille de cellule) et la distance de TDD ont été mesurées pour différentes richesses et proportions d'hydrogène dans le propane. En particulier, les effets de l'obstacle (longueur et nature) et du diamètre du tube sur la TDD ont été examinés. Les résultats montrent que les corrélations classiques Taille de cellule - Longueur d'induction chimique pour la détonation et Taille de cellule - Longueur de transition pour la TDD - bien établies pour les mélanges simples - restent valables pour ces mélanges binaires. L'addition du C3H8 à H2 diminue la détonabilité du combustible binaire. Des visualisations d'accélération de flamme par ombroscopie ont été réalisées à l'aide de caméras ultra-rapides dan le but d'identifier les mécanismes physiques contrôlant ce processus pour différentes configurations d'obstacles. Les enregistrements ont mis en évidence deux phases de propagation. Dans la première, les instabilités intrinsèques de la flamme, l'augmentation de sa surface ainsi que la combustion turbulente retardée - résultant de la zone de recirculation entre deux obstacles successifs - jouent un rôle prédominant. Dans la deuxième, l'accélération est contrôlée par l'interaction du front de flamme et des ondes de choc réfléchies sur les obstacles ou sur les parois du confinement. Il en résulte une forte accélération de la flamme avec établissement d'un régime de blocage thermique qui, dans certaines conditions, mène à l'apparition de la détonation.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited. / During World War II many surface combatants were damaged or severely crippled by close-proximity underwater explosions from ordnance that had actually missed their target. Since this time all new classes of combatants have been required to conduct shock trial tests on the lead ship of the class in order to test the survivability of mission essential equipment in a severe shock environment. While these tests are extremely important in determining the vulnerabilities of a surface ship, they require an extensive amount of preparation, manhours, and money. Furthermore, these tests present an obvious danger to the crew on board, the ship itself, and any marine life in the vicinity. Creating a virtual shock environment by use of a computer to model the ship structure and the surrounding fluid presents a valuable design tool and an attractive alternative to these tests. This thesis examines the accuracy of shock simulation using the shock trials conducted on USS WINSTON S. CHURCHILL (DDG 81) in 2001. Specifically, all three explosions that DDG 81 was subjected to are simulated and the resulting predictions compared with the actual shock trial data. The effects of fluid volume size, mesh density, mesh quality, and shot location are investigated. / Lieutenant, United States Navy

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, 1981. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND SCIENCE. / Bibliography: leaves 43-44. / by Miral Eonhah Kim-E. / M.S.

We address questions related to the parameterization of two distinct types of seismic sources: earthquakes and underground nuclear explosions. For earthquakes, we focus on the improvement of location parameters, latitude and longitude, using relative measurements of spatial cluster of events. For underground nuclear explosions, we focus on the seismic source model, especially with regard to the generation of surface waves. We develop a procedure to improve relative earthquake location estimates by fitting predicted differential travel times to those measured by cross-correlating Rayleigh- and Love-wave arrivals for multiple earthquakes recorded at common stations. Our procedure can be applied to populations of earthquakes with arbitrary source mechanisms because we mitigate the phase delay that results from surface-wave radiation patterns by making source corrections calculated from the source mechanism solutions published in the Global CMT Catalog. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this relocation procedure by first applying it to two suites of synthetic earthquakes. We then relocate real earthquakes in three separate regions: two ridge-transform systems and one subduction zone. In each scenario, relocated epicenters show a reduction in location uncertainty compared to initial single-event location estimates. We apply the relocation procedure on a larger scale to the seismicity of the Eltanin Fault System which is comprised of three large transform faults: the Heezen transform, the Tharp transform, and the Hollister transform. We examine the localization of seismicity in each transform, the locations of earthquakes with atypical source mechanisms, and the spatial extent of seismic rupture and repeating earthquakes in each transform. We show that improved relative location estimates, aligned with bathymetry, greatly reduces the localization of seismicity on each of the three transforms. We also show how improved location estimates enhance the ability to use earthquake locations to address geophysical questions such as the presence of atypical earthquakes and the nature of seismic rupture along an oceanic transform fault. We investigate the physical basis for the mb-MS discriminant, which relies on differences between amplitudes of body waves and surface waves. We analyze observations for 71 well-recorded underground nuclear tests that were conducted between 1977-1989 at the Balapan test site near Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan in the former Soviet Union. We combine revised mb values and earlier long-period surface-wave results with a new source model, which allows the vertical and horizontal forces of the explosive source to be different. We introduce a scaling factor between vertical and horizontal forces in the explosion model, to reconcile differences between body wave and surface wave observations. We find that this parameter is well correlated with the scaled depth of burial for UNEs at this test site. We use the modified source model to estimate the scaled depth of burial for the 71 UNEs considered in this study.

Les risques liés aux explosions de poussières, de par leur fréquence et leur gravité, sont élevés. Nous avons donc essayé de comprendre ce phénomène par le biais d’une étude paramétrique sur l’inflammabilité (concentration, température et énergie minimales d’inflammation) et l’explosivité des poussières (surpression maximale et vitesse de montée en pression) vis-à-vis de poussières aussi bien métalliques (aluminium) qu’organiques (sucre glace et polyéthylène). Les influences de la concentration, la granulométrie, la teneur en eau et en solvant (mélanges hybrides) sur la sensibilité et la sévérité des explosions de poussière ont été étudiées. Nous avons par exemple mis en évidence un accroissement de l’explosivité des poussières en présence de solvant. Ces études paramétriques ont permis d’initier une modélisation de l’explosion poussière en reliant la cinétique de combustion à la violence des explosions / Dust explosions risks linked with their occurrence and their gravity are very high. In consequence, we try to understand this phenomenon by studying the influence of various parameters on the dust inflammability (minimum inflammation concentration, temperature and energy) and dust explosivity (maximum overpressure and rate of pressure rise) for both metallic (aluminium) and organic (icing sugar and polyethylene) dusts. Concentration, particle size distribution, water and solvent (hybrid mixtures) contents influences on dust explosion sensibility and severity have been studied. For example, we observed an increase of dust explosivity in the presence of solvent. Thanks to these parametric studies, we initiated a dust explosion modelling by linking combustion kinetic and explosion violence

Two foams, a polyether (density 32.5 kg/m3) and a polyester (density 38 kg/m3) foam were tested in a shock tube to analyze the interaction of a normal shock wave and a compressible porous material. The foam specimens were placed in the shock tube test section! the foam being bounded by two steel walis, two glass windows and a solid back plate. The compression chamber of the shock tube was pressurized and the diaphragm separating the compression chamber and the expansion chamber was ruptured, thus producing a normal shock wave which travels down the shock tube and strikes the foam. Piezoelectric pressure transducers 'vvera used to record the pressure before, alongside and behind the foam. A complete set of schlieren photographs, recording the interaction of the incident shock wave and the porous material were taken for each foam. A method ,tortracking the path of particles of foam (path photographs) was developed. Combining the information obtained from the pressure records, schlieren photographs and path photographs a complete picture of the shock wave foam interaction was developed. All the gas waves were identified and analyzed, A foam wave (velocity 90 m/s) travelling through the skeleton of the material was discovered. A physical model was developed to explain the high pressure recorded behind the foam. This model is based upon the foam being compressed and forming an almost solid piston, thus forcing the trapped gas into a diminishing volume and creating a high pressure behind the foam. The theoretical analyses of Monti (30), Gel'fand (20) and IBvozdeva (22) were analyz.ed and compared. The general finding was that for the range of incident mach numbers 1.~i1 to 1.46 Monti's analysis under predicts the reflected Mach number by 3 % and Gel'fand's analysis over predicts the reflected Mach number by 6 %. The coefficient of pressure increase (the ratio of the maximum pressure recorded behind the foam to the equivalent pressure recorded during ~he reflection of a shock wave from a solid wall) as predicted iJy Gvoz.deva's ane.lysisfor the polyether foam lies wjthin the scatter of the experimental results. However for the polyester foam Gvozdeva's analysis under predicts the coefficient of pressure increase by 15%. / GR 2016