Engineering Commons^™

Rapid Dissolution For Destructive Assay Of Nuclear Melt Glass, Jonathan Allen Gill

Masters Theses

This study evaluates four methods for dissolving complex glassy debris resulting from nuclear detonations. The samples of interest simulate the glassy debris generated from a nuclear detonation’s fireball coming in contact with solid masses. Each method attempts to achieve dissolution through different approaches involving either acid digestion, alkaline digestion, or molten salt fusion. Two of the four methods were modified to retain all elements of the debris or surrogate debris. This retention is critical to the proportional relationships used in identifying fuel types and designs of nuclear weapons. Analysis is conducted with an inductively coupled time of flight mass spectrometer …