On Tue, 25 Feb 2003 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> ...The gas core nuclear
> concept was essentially a radially symmetric drum. A uranium-bearing gas
> (Uranium hexafluoride, in my memory, but perhaps Henry has better data...) is
> kept in place near the inside rim of the drum by centrifugal force...
It would have been mostly dissociated at working temperatures, but I think
UF6 is what they were planning on starting with. The startup process was
never made very clear in the descriptions I saw...
I believe there were a bunch of proposed physical layouts, the centrifugal
design being only one. The last time this was seriously worked on -- I
heard a talk by Steve Howe (of LANL) in 1996 -- they weren't sure which was
best, although they seemed to be favoring a concept with a toroidal core.
One layout that solves the containment problem is the "nuclear lightbulb",
which puts the core inside a transparent cylinder. But cooling that
cylinder is not easy, and Howe said they were keeping that design as a
fallback only, because it appeared to max out at about 1600s Isp.
Henry Spencer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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