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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.
K. O. Ott
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 113 | Number 2 | February 1993 | Pages 122-135
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE93-A24002
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A simplified model for a liquid-metal-cooled reactor (LMR) transient analysis, in which point kinetics as well as lumped descriptions of the heat transfer equations in all components are applied, is converted from a differential into an integral formulation. All 30 differential balance equations are implicitly solved in terms of convolution integrals. The prompt jump approximation is applied as the strong negative feedback effectively keeps the net reactivity well below prompt critical. After implicit finite differencing of the convolution integrals, the kinetics equation assumes a new form, i.e., the “quadratic dynamics equation.” In this integral formulation, the initial value problem of typical LMR transients can be solved with large time steps (initially I s, later up to 256 s). This then makes transient problems amenable to a treatment on a personal computer. The resulting mathematical model forms the basis for the GW-BASIC program LMR transient calculation (LTC) program. The LTC program has also been converted to QuickBASIC. The running time for a 10-h transient overpower transient is then ≈40 to 10 s, depending on the hardware version (286, 386, or 486 with math coprocessors).