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Breaking ground on a new approach to construction
The drive to Kairos Power’s reactor demonstration site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is not only scenic—it’s historic. Nearly 85 years ago, roughly 30,000 construction workers transformed orchards and farmland into a key Manhattan Project site. Depending on your route, you may pass by one of the three gatehouses that were once military checkpoints controlling access to Atomic Energy Commission production facilities.
Ian R. Terry
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 113 | Number 3 | March 1993 | Pages 282-285
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE93-A24496
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The problem of determining neutron yield from the (α, n) reaction has been the subject of much investigation, mainly experimental, for a number of years. Calculated values depend on cross sections and other nuclear data, which are not available for all isotopes. As a compromise, using the experimental data as a basis, an expression has been derived to provide a simple computation of the neutron yield in any given mixture containing actinides. This has been successfully tested with known (α,n) neutron source strengths in compounds of plutonium.