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Gravel Gertie
A Gravel Gertie is a type of bunker designed to provide containment during the nuclear weapons design, nuclear weapons assembly process, when the plutonium or highly enriched uranium "pit" is mated with the high explosive components and wired into the electronics (the "physics package") of the warhead. Design The Gravel Gertie was developed for the Atomic Energy Commission in 1957 by Sandia National Laboratories. It was named after the character of the same name from the Dick Tracy comics; the compressed mass of gravel forming the ceiling of the bunker reportedly reminded researchers of Gertie's grey, curly hair. A modification of existing domed munitions bunkers, the Gravel Gertie was designed specifically to contain nuclear materials in the event of a catastrophic fizzle (nuclear test), "low order" detonation of a bomb being serviced. A full nuclear detonation was highly unlikely and impossible to design against, but high-ton/low-kiloton level "fizzles" were a very real risk d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bunker
A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. They were used extensively in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War for weapons facilities, command and control centers, and storage facilities. Bunkers can also be used as protection from tornadoes. Trench bunkers are small concrete structures, partly dug into the ground. Many artillery installations, especially for coastal artillery, have historically been protected by extensive bunker systems. Typical industrial bunkers include mining sites, food storage areas, dumps for materials, data storage, and sometimes living quarters. When a house is purpose-built with a bunker, the normal location is a reinforced below-ground bathroom with fiber-reinforced plastic shells. Bunkers deflect the blast wave from nearby explosions to prevent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bunker
A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. They were used extensively in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War for weapons facilities, command and control centers, and storage facilities. Bunkers can also be used as protection from tornadoes. Trench bunkers are small concrete structures, partly dug into the ground. Many artillery installations, especially for coastal artillery, have historically been protected by extensive bunker systems. Typical industrial bunkers include mining sites, food storage areas, dumps for materials, data storage, and sometimes living quarters. When a house is purpose-built with a bunker, the normal location is a reinforced below-ground bathroom with fiber-reinforced plastic shells. Bunkers deflect the blast wave from nearby explosions to prevent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dick Tracy
''Dick Tracy'' is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy (originally Plainclothes Tracy), a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the ''Detroit Mirror'', and it was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. Gould wrote and drew the strip until 1977,webpage notes villains and includes short bio of Chester Gould. and various artists and writers have continued it. Dick Tracy has also been the hero in a number of films, including Dick Tracy (1990 film), ''Dick Tracy'' in which Warren Beatty played the lead in 1990. Tom De Haven praised Gould's ''Dick Tracy'' as an "outrageously funny American Gothic", while Brian Walker described it as a "ghoulishly entertaining creation" which had "gripping stories filled with violence and pathos".Walker, Brian. ''The Comics: The Complete Collection''. New York: Abrams ComicArts, 2011. (pp. 189-191, 226-231, 259, 370) Comic strip Creation and ear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Failsafe
In engineering, a fail-safe is a design feature or practice that in the event of a specific type of failure, inherently responds in a way that will cause minimal or no harm to other equipment, to the environment or to people. Unlike inherent safety to a particular hazard, a system being "fail-safe" does not mean that failure is impossible or improbable, but rather that the system's design prevents or mitigates unsafe consequences of the system's failure. That is, if and when a "fail-safe" system fails, it remains at least as safe as it was before the failure. Since many types of failure are possible, failure mode and effects analysis is used to examine failure situations and recommend safety design and procedures. Some systems can never be made fail-safe, as continuous availability is needed. Redundancy, fault tolerance, or contingency plans are used for these situations (e.g. multiple independently controlled and fuel-fed engines). Examples Mechanical or physical Examples inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuclear Safety And Security
Nuclear safety is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "The achievement of proper operating conditions, prevention of accidents or mitigation of accident consequences, resulting in protection of workers, the public and the environment from undue radiation hazards". The IAEA defines nuclear security as "The prevention and detection of and response to, theft, sabotage, unauthorized access, illegal transfer or other malicious acts involving nuclear materials, other radioactive substances or their associated facilities". This covers nuclear power plants and all other nuclear facilities, the transportation of nuclear materials, and the use and storage of nuclear materials for medical, power, industry, and military uses. The nuclear power industry has improved the safety and performance of reactors, and has proposed new and safer reactor designs. However, a perfect safety cannot be guaranteed. Potential sources of problems include human errors and external eve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burghfield
Burghfield is a village and large civil parish in West Berkshire, England, with a boundary with Reading. Burghfield can trace its history back to before the Domesday book, and was once home to three manors: Burghfield Regis, Burghfield Abbas and Sheffield (or Soefeld). Since the 1980s the population of Burghfield has nearly doubled with the construction of many new housing estates, making it a dormitory for Reading, Newbury, Basingstoke and the M4 corridor which crosses the north of the parish. Most of the former sparsely inhabited fields of the hamlet of Pingewood, in the north of the parish, are divided by the M4 motorway and have been converted, after gravel extraction in the mid to late 20th century, into lakes and are used for water sports, fishing, and other leisure activities. They are also a habitat for migrating geese, water fowl and other wildlife. A few higher gravel pits in this area have been drained, clay-lined and are used as landfill sites. Burghfield has many ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atomic Weapons Establishment
The Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) is a United Kingdom Ministry of Defence research facility responsible for the design, manufacture and support of warheads for the UK's nuclear weapons. It is the successor to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE) with its main site on the former RAF Aldermaston and has major facilities at Burghfield, Blacknest and RNAD Coulport. AWE plc, responsible for the day-to-day operations of AWE, is owned by the Ministry of Defence and operated as a non-departmental public body. Until June 2021, AWE plc was owned by a consortium of Jacobs Engineering Group, Lockheed Martin UK and Serco through AWE Management Ltd, which held a 25‑year contract (until March 2025) to operate AWE, although all the sites remained owned by the Government of the United Kingdom which had a golden share in AWE plc. In November 2020, it was announced that the Ministry of Defence had triggered a contractual break point and would take ownership of AWE Plc in Ju ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dallas Morning News
''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ''Galveston Daily News'', of Galveston, Texas. Historically, and to the present day, it is the most prominent newspaper in Dallas. Today it has one of the 20 largest paid circulations in the United States. Throughout the 1990s and as recently as 2010, the paper has won nine Pulitzer Prizes for reporting and photography, George Polk Awards for education reporting and regional reporting, and an Overseas Press Club award for photography. The company has its headquarters in downtown Dallas. History ''The Dallas Morning News'' was founded in 1885 as a spin-off of the ''Galveston Daily News'' by Alfred Horatio Belo. In 1926, the Belo family sold a majority interest in the paper to its longtime publisher, George Dealey. By the 1920s, the Dallas Morni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kiloton
TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be , which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a tonne, metric ton (1,000 kilograms) of Trinitrotoluene, TNT. In other words, for each gram of TNT exploded, (or 4184 joules) of energy is released. This convention intends to compare the destructiveness of an event with that of conventional explosive materials, of which TNT is a typical example, although other conventional explosives such as dynamite contain more energy. Kiloton and megaton The "kiloton (of TNT)" is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 tera-, terajoules (). The "megaton (of TNT)" is a unit of energy equal to 4.184 peta-, petajoules (). The kiloton and megaton of TNT have traditionally been used to describe the energy output, and hence the destructive power, of a nuclear weapon. The TNT equivalent appears in various CTBT, n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
False Ceiling
A dropped ceiling is a secondary ceiling, hung below the main (structural) ceiling. It may also be referred to as a drop ceiling, T-bar ceiling, false ceiling, suspended ceiling, grid ceiling, drop in ceiling, drop out ceiling, or ceiling tiles and is a staple of modern construction and architecture in both residential and commercial applications. History Dropped ceilings and ceiling tiles were used in Japan for aesthetic reasons as early as the Muromachi Period (1337 to 1573).Interview with Matthew Welch, Curator of Japanese and Korean Art, Minneapolis Institute of Arts retrieved January 12, 2014 These could be made with simple planks, or |
Gravel
Gravel is a loose aggregation of rock fragments. Gravel occurs naturally throughout the world as a result of sedimentary and erosive geologic processes; it is also produced in large quantities commercially as crushed stone. Gravel is classified by particle size range and includes size classes from granule- to boulder-sized fragments. In the Udden-Wentworth scale gravel is categorized into granular gravel () and pebble gravel (). ISO 14688 grades gravels as fine, medium, and coarse, with ranges 2–6.3 mm to 20–63 mm. One cubic metre of gravel typically weighs about 1,800 kg (or a cubic yard weighs about 3,000 lb). Gravel is an important commercial product, with a number of applications. Almost half of all gravel production is used as aggregate for concrete. Much of the rest is used for road construction, either in the road base or as the road surface (with or without asphalt or other binders.) Naturally occurring porous gravel deposits have a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fizzle (nuclear Test)
A fizzle occurs when the detonation of a device for creating a nuclear explosion (such as a nuclear weapon) grossly fails to meet its expected yield. The cause(s) for the failure can be linked to improper design, poor construction, or lack of expertise.Staff Writer.NBC Weapons: North Korean Fizzle Bomb" ''Strategy Page.'' Retrieved on 2008-05-04. Earl Lane.Nuclear Experts Assess the Threat of a "Backyard Bomb”" ''American Association for the Advancement of Science.'' Retrieved on 2008-05-04. All countries that have had a nuclear weapons testing program have experienced some fizzles.Meirion Jones.A short history of fizzles" ''BBC News.'' Retrieved on 2008-05-04. A fizzle can spread radioactive material throughout the surrounding area, involve a partial fission reaction of the fissile material, or both.Theodore E. Liolios.The Effects of Nuclear Terrorism: Fizzles" (PDF) ''European Program on Science and International Security.'' Retrieved on 2008-05-04. For practical purposes, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
