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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.
H. K. Clark
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 24 | Number 2 | February 1966 | Pages 133-141
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE66-A18298
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The influence of the distribution of 235U, 239Pu, and 233U in water on the minimum critical mass, the minimum critical concentration per unit length of cylinder, and the minimum critical mass per unit area of slab surface is calculated. Two energy groups are employed in the calculations with parameters normalized to force agreement between calculations and experiments performed with water-reflected spheres containing uniform aqueous solutions having a wide range of concentrations. Calculations made with these parameters for a water-reflected cylinder, in which the optimum distribution for minimum mass was approximated within five coaxial regions, agree well with experimental results. Minimum critical masses, concentrations per unit length of cylinder, and masses per unit area calculated for 235U, 239Pu, and 233U are, respectively, 768 g, 16.9 g/cm, 0.417 g/ cm2; 492 g, 10.6 g/cm, 0.266 g/cm2; and 571 g, 13.5 g/cm, 0.362 g/cm2.