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Godzilla is helping ITER prepare for tokamak assembly
ITER employees stand by Godzilla, the most powerful commercially available industrial robot available. (Photo: ITER)
Many people are familiar with Godzilla as a giant reptilian monster that emerged from the sea off the coast of Japan, the product of radioactive contamination. These days, there is a new Godzilla, but it has a positive—and entirely fact-based—association with nuclear energy. This one has emerged inside the Tokamak Assembly Preparation Building of ITER in southern France.
S. E. Corno, M. L. Buzano, P. Ravetto
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 105 | Number 2 | June 1990 | Pages 142-159
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE90-A23744
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An original technique for deriving the closed form solution of the multigroup system of time- and space-dependent neutron diffusion equations is reported and applied to a nonuniform multiplying structure of particular interest in cylindrical geometry. The problem of evaluating the time eigenvalues, the dynamic eigenstates, and the asymptotic power behavior of mixed fuel cores, where localized variations of the delayed neutron yield of the fuel occur, is analyzed on a rigorous basis and solved for significant sample geometries. The results provide a sound basis for establishing the region of a core where a significant amount of plutonium will induce the “minimum damage” to the overall dynamic characteristics of the reactor. These results also provide the “more suitable spatial distributions” to be assigned to a limited quantity of uranium to improve the dynamic performance of a nonuniform core, basically fueled with plutonium or mixed fissionable materials. Hence, it can be stated, on a rigorous a priori basis, the conditions where the plutonium energy release can be made as safe as possible.