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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.
Ken Nakajima, Masanori Akai, Takenori Suzaki
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 119 | Number 3 | March 1995 | Pages 175-181
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE95-A24083
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The modified conversion ratio (MCR) (the ratio of the 238U capture rate to the total fission rate) in a light-water-moderated uranium-plutonium mixed-oxide- (MOX-) fuel lattice was measured for four types of lattices with different plutonium enrichment. In the current method, the relative reaction rates of 238U capture and total fission were obtained from nondestructive gamma-ray spectrometry of 239Np and fission products, respectively, which accumulated in the fuel rod irradiated at the Tank-Type Critical Assembly. The measured results of the fission rates derived from two different fission products agreed well with each other, and the measured MCRs showed good agreement with the results of the Monte Carlo calculation with the whole-core model. Therefore, the current nondestructive method is applicable to the MCR measurement of MOX fuel.