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The Radiation Protection and Shielding Division is developing and promoting radiation protection and shielding aspects of nuclear science and technology — including interaction of nuclear radiation with materials and biological systems, instruments and techniques for the measurement of nuclear radiation fields, and radiation shield design and evaluation.
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2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
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Commercial nuclear innovation "new space" age
In early 2006, a start-up company launched a small rocket from a tiny island in the Pacific. It exploded, showering the island with debris. A year later, a second launch attempt sent a rocket to space but failed to make orbit, burning up in the atmosphere. Another year brought a third attempt—and a third failure. The following month, in September 2008, the company used the last of its funds to launch a fourth rocket. It reached orbit, making history as the first privately funded liquid-fueled rocket to do so.
I. Pázsit, A. Jonsson
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 167 | Number 1 | January 2011 | Pages 61-76
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE10-15
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The dynamic space- and frequency-dependent response of a molten salt reactor (MSR) to stationary perturbations is investigated in a simple analytical model. The Green's function of the system is investigated in the general case of arbitrary fuel recirculation velocity and in the limiting case of infinite fuel velocity, which permits closed-form solutions in both the static and dynamic cases. It is found that the amplitude of the induced noise is generally higher and the domain of the point kinetic behavior valid up to higher frequencies than in a corresponding traditional system. This is due to the differing behavior of the delayed neutron precursors as compared to the traditional case. The MSR equations are not self-adjoint and the adjoint equation and adjoint function have to be constructed, which is also done here. Finally, the space-dependent neutron noise, induced by propagating perturbations of the absorption cross section, is calculated. A number of interesting properties that are relevant to full-size MSRs are found and interpreted. The results are consistent with those in traditional systems, but the domains of various behavior regimes (point kinetic, space dependent, etc.) are shifted to higher frequencies or system sizes.