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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
John J. Roberts, R. F. Fleming, Harold P. Smith, Jr.
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 27 | Number 3 | March 1967 | Pages 573-580
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE86-A17624
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The logic of the time-optimal solution to the xenon shutdown problem for a point reactor model has been successfully applied to an actual reactor system. Spatial integration of the flux-square weighted xenon concentration was used. The predetermined power variation with time successfully held the xenon boundary and created a final shutdown (target) trajectory whose maximum was within three percent of the specified boundary based on the total reactivity variation of the program. Although digital computer calculation, occasionally using trial-and-error techniques, was necessary to predict the power-time shutdown program, the computer requirements were not excessive. Approximately 7 h of additional reactor operation was utilized to prevent a 16 h period during which xenon buildup would have prevented reactor operation.