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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.
C. C. Pain, C. R. E. de Oliveira, A. J. H. Goddard, A. P. Umpleby
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 138 | Number 1 | May 2001 | Pages 78-95
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE138-78
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Research on the incorporation of compressibility effects, for both the liquid and radiolytic gas phases, into the Finite Element Transient Criticality (FETCH) coupled neutronics/computational fluid dynamics code is described. The code has been developed to simulate criticality transients in multiphase media and is applied here to fissile solution transient criticality. The predicted fission and pressure transients obtained by the enhanced numerical model are benchmarked against the results from the SILENE series of experiments on criticality transients in uranium solutions. The amplitude and the form of the first pressure peak, following a step reactivity change, are well represented, and insight is gained into the form of subsequent pressure oscillations. An explanation is given on the absence of these oscillations in more energetic transients.