Accession Number:

ADA280688

Title:

Nuclear Cloud Rise and Growth

Descriptive Note:

Doctoral thesis

Corporate Author:

DEFENSE NUCLEAR AGENCY WASHINGTON DC

Personal Author(s):

Report Date:

1994-06-01

Pagination or Media Count:

147.0

Abstract:

Nuclear cloud rise and growth to stabilization is investigated. The Cloud Rise Module of the Defense Land Fallout Interpretive Code DELFIC is reviewed and improved. Both the modeling of bubble rise dynamics and particle rise dynamics are addressed. Improvements are made in predicting the stabilized particulate cloud for nuclear fallout purposes. The results are compared to US atmospheric nuclear weapons tests and to the output of MAZTASS hydrocode simulations. The improvements to the bubble rise dynamics include using a single term entrainment equation and constants for the entrainment and eddy viscous drag parameters. The validation showed a slight improvement was obtained with the improved model in predicting the cloud top values for 54 US near-surface bursts. The improvement to the particle rise model consisted of replacing the 1- D particle rise with a 2-D analytical flow field model. The model was based on Hills spherical vortex. This improvement provided a radial distribution to the radioactive dust cloud. The larger fallout particles 200 microns achieved a higher altitude due to simulating the circulation within the cloud. Dose rate contours for some cases will be altered due to this change in vertical distribution from the 1-D model. Nuclear cloud rise, Nuclear weapon effects, Fireball rise, Delfic, Fallout, Atmospheric physics, Dissertation

Descriptors:

Subject Categories:

  • Atmospheric Physics
  • Nuclear Weapons
  • Fluid Mechanics

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE


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