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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.
George I. Bell
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 21 | Number 3 | March 1965 | Pages 390-401
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE65-1
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
We consider the probability, pn(R,t∫; ,,t), that in a multiplying system, a neutron with position velocity , at time t leads to exactly n neutrons in region R of , space at time t∫. By formulating pn in terms of first collision probabilities we derive a non-linear (Boltzmann-like) integro-differential equation for the probability generating function, G. The linearized equation for = 1 - G is shown to be adjoint to the usual Boltzmann equation for the average neutron flux. The behavior of for subcritical and supercritical systems is analyzed. For large t∫-t, it is shown that for subcritical systems approaches zero exponentially, while for supercritical systems → which is a solution of the time-independent non-linear equation for and equals the probability of getting a divergent chain reaction from the initial neutron. In section B, one-velocity theory with isotropic scattering is described in some detail while in section C are outlined the extensions to 1) energy-dependent problems with anisotropic scattering 2) multiple final states, 3) random sources, 4) counting problems, and 5) delayed neutron precursors. In section D methods for solution of equations for G are briefly discussed, and it is shown that the asymptotic behavior may be found from solutions of linear time-independent ‘adjoint α’ and ‘adjoint k’ calculations. Derivation of a point model independent of space and velocity is carried out by an expansion in adjoint α eigenfunctions and the model parameters are shown to differ from those usually assumed in point models.