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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.
D. Saphier
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 47 | Number 3 | March 1972 | Pages 275-289
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE72-A22414
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new hybrid method was developed for the solution of the one-dimensional time-dependent diffusion equation in four energy and four delayed-neutron groups. Using this method it is possible to reduce the cost per problem solved by an order of magnitude compared with commonly used digital methods. The solution is based on discretizing the multigroup diffusion equation with respect to the spatial variable while leaving the time variable continuous. The simple coupled time-dependent differential equations so obtained are integrated continuously and in parallel for each of the reactor regions. The regional boundary values are updated from iteration to iteration until convergence is obtained. Two examples are presented in which the hybrid and digital solutions are compared for a fast plutonium oxide fueled reactor. The agreement between the hybrid and digital solution is fairly good.