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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.
Myron B. Reynolds
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 20 | Number 4 | December 1964 | Pages 386-391
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE64-A20981
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A differential-type pressure transducer suitable for use in a fast-neutron environment at elevated temperatures has been developed. The sensitivity of this device is approximately 0.25 lb/in.2 with the ability to withstand an unbalance pressure of over 1500 lb/in.2 from either direction. A number of stainless-steel-clad, UO2-filled fuel rods equipped with these transducers have been irradiated in the Vallecitos Boiling Water Reactor to exposures up to roughly 4000 MWd/t peak. These experiments have shown that fission-gas release is negligible from UO2 operated below the recrystallization temperature. For operation at higher temperatures, observed fission-gas pressures were in qualitative agreement with measured void volume and quantity of free gas found in post-irradiation examination. The decrease in void volume during operation has been calculated for a fuel rod and the calculated value used to estimate a mean fuel temperature.