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[en] An overview of world activities in the development of peaceful nuclear explosions is presented. (U.S.)

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[en] The Soviet Union is considering the use of nuclear emplosives to excavate a portion of the Pechora-Kama Canal to divert water from northward-flowing rivers into the Caspian Sea. The Soviets have provided a general description of the Canal project, but detailed analyses of the nuclear design, including yields and number of nuclear charges, have never been published. Estimates for the nuclear design based on three different approaches are presented. Because of the meager amount of data provided by Soviet scientists, a variety of assumptions, based on U.S. experience, regarding media properties and design parameters have been made. The resulting estimates are strongly dependent upon these assumptions. Reasonable sets of assumptions can be found which lead to results in agreement with the published Soviet estimates for the total yield and total number of explosives. The results also indicate that the nuclear canal can be constructed, under most assumptions, to meet all identified Soviet criteria using only nuclear explosives with yields less than or equal to 150 kt

[en] The mechanical effects of nuclear underground explosions are presented: crater and cavity formation, seismic waves, transmission to atmosphere of a part of the energy. The production of radioactive products is considered together with the resulting contamination. The American projects of nuclear explosive industrial use (Plowshare, Gasbuggy, Sloop etc... Projects) and their future development are discussed

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[en] Two-dimensional calculations have been done to determine the feasibility of constructing deep canals with nuclear explosives subject to the limitation in the proposed PNE Treaty. The conditions under which a series of explosives set in a row can be approximated by a cylindrical line source have been determined. Using this result, the possibility of lifting 250 m of overburden with 150-kt charges spaced at 50-m intervals has been investigated. This study shows that for a variety of equations of state for the geological medium, there appears little possibility that such an excavation can be accomplished

[en] The use of nuclear excavation as a construction technique for producing harbors, canals, highway cuts, and other large excavations requires a high assurance that the yield and depth of burst selected for the explosive will produce the desired configuration within an acceptable degree of tolerance. Nuclear excavation technology advanced significantly during 1968 as a result of the successful execution of Projects Cabriolet, Buggy, and Schooner. Until these experiments were conducted, the only nuclear data available for designing large excavations were derived from Sedan (100 kt in alluvium), Danny Boy (0.42 kt in basalt), and Sulky (0.090 kt in basalt). Applicable experience has now been extended to include two additional rock types: tuff and porphyritic trachyte, non-homogeneous formations with severe geologic layering, and a nuclear row in hard rock. The continued development of cratering calculations using in situ geophysical measurements and high-pressure test data have provided a means for predicting the cratering characteristics of untested materials. Chemical explosive cratering experiments conducted in the pre-Gondola series during the past several years have been directed toward determining the behavior of weak, wet clay shales. This material is important to nuclear excavation because of potential long-term stability problems which may affect the cratered slopes. (author)

[en] Based on the premise that there will always be a finite chance of a Plowshare project failure, the implications of such a failure are examined. It is suggested that the optimum reliability level will not necessarily be the highest attainable, but rather that which results in minimum average project cost. The type of performance guarantee that the U. S. should provide for nuclear explosive services, the determination of nuclear yield, courses of action to take in the event of failure, and methods to offset remedial costs are discussed. (author)