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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.
H. B. Choi, T. J. Downar
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 111 | Number 2 | June 1992 | Pages 205-213
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE92-A23934
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Depletion perturbation theory has been extended to the closed nuclear fuel cycle, and methods have been developed for computing the constrained sensitivities that account for fuel reprocessing and fabrication. An iterative method was developed to solve the sensitivity equations and applied to the closed fuel cycle of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR). The sensitivities computed using the method were in good agreement with sensitivities from direct subtraction of perturbed and unperturbed depletion calculations. The closed fuel cycle sensitivities were also compared with the sensitivities for the open fuel cycle without reprocessing. The closed fuel cycle sensitivities were found to be larger, particularly for isotopes higher up the burnup chain. These results indicate this work would have particular importance for the analysis of advanced reactor designs with closed fuel cycles, such as the IFR. The methods developed here will facilitate accurate and efficient sensitivity studies of such reactors.