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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.
J. B. Yasinsky
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 39 | Number 2 | February 1970 | Pages 241-256
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE70-A21204
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The results of a numerical study as to the adequacy of the point kinetics method for analyzing rod-ejection accidents are presented. Two-group slab representations of three different seed-blanket reactors are considered. Five different point kinetics formulations are considered for each fictitious rod-ejection accident considered; each formulation being characterized by the shape functions used to calculate the instantaneous reactivity. From these numerical studies we conclude that the accuracy of a point model, for rapid, nonseparable transients of the type considered, is extremely dependent upon the specifics of the particular model (i.e., on the shape function used), and in general one cannot assume a priori that a specific point model is conservative or nonconservative.