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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.
P. E. Reagan, F. L. Carlsen, R. M. Carroll
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 18 | Number 3 | March 1964 | Pages 301-318
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE64-A20051
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fission-gas release from pyrolytic-carbon-coated uranium carbide particles was studied as part of a fuel-development program for gas-cooled reactors. The particles were contained in a test capsule between concentric cylinders of porous graphite and were heated by fission heat. A small flow of helium was used to sweep the fission gas from the test capsule. Uranium carbide particles coated with three types of pyrolytic carbon (laminar, columnar, and duplex), as well as uncoated uranium carbide particles, were irradiated at temperatures up to 1800 F. The steady-state fission-gas release rates were measured as a function of temperature and burnup. All three coating types greatly reduced the fission-gas release rate from uranium carbide particles; the duplex coating was much better than the laminar or the columnar coatings. Post-irradiation examination revealed less than 0.1% broken coatings for the duplex coating. A radiation-induced reaction zone was observed at the fuel/coating interface for all three types. A correlation was made between the number of broken coatings and fission-gas release rate.