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Breaking ground on a new approach to construction
The drive to Kairos Power’s reactor demonstration site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is not only scenic—it’s historic. Nearly 85 years ago, roughly 30,000 construction workers transformed orchards and farmland into a key Manhattan Project site. Depending on your route, you may pass by one of the three gatehouses that were once military checkpoints controlling access to Atomic Energy Commission production facilities.
M. J. Ohanian, R. S. Booth, R. B. Perez
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 30 | Number 1 | October 1967 | Pages 95-103
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE67-A17246
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Neutron-wave propagation in moderating media is investigated within the framework of the diffusion approximation to the Boltzmann equation, using a realistic scattering model and the eigenfunction expansion method. The eigenfunctions are obtained from the thermalization theory solution to the exponential experiment with their corresponding eigenvalues being the fundamental and higher diffusion lengths of the medium. Expanding the energy dependence of the neutron-wave problem in these eigenfunctions leads to a simpler and more accurate secular determinant than that obtained from a Laguerre polynomial expansion. Solving the secular determinant yields the squared complex inverse relaxation lengths for the asymptotic energy mode and for the continuum energy modes. A discrete energy formulation, Simpson's rule integration scheme, and the Jacobi method of matrix diagonalization are used in the numerical solution to the eigen-value problem. The dispersion law for graphite, obtained by direct solution of the complex secular determinant, is compared with experimental results. This investigation indicates that high-energy-mode contamination will not seriously affect neutron-wave experiments in graphite in the frequency range where diffusion and thermalization parameters can be obtained.