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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.
G. Flamenbaum, A. Zaetta, M. Martini, M. Michenot, T. Newton, H. Sztark
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 106 | Number 1 | September 1990 | Pages 64-68
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE90-A23758
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Several experiments on Superphénix are used to compare calculations and measurements for various control rod configurations that show salient spatial effects: 1. “local criticality” configurations (i.e., in a subcritical reactor with all rods inserted, adjacent control rods are successively withdrawn up to criticality) 2. criticality achieved with one control rod curtain up and the other remaining fully inserted 3. “handling error” configurations (i.e., all rods inserted except one, which is supposed to be replaced by a fuel subassembly). These experiments and their analysis are described. The calculation-to-experiment comparison shows a good agreement.