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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.
J. Ligou
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 63 | Number 1 | May 1977 | Pages 31-40
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE77-A27001
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
On the basis of a point kinetic model (adiabatic approximation), the explosion of fissionable pellets is analyzed. The needed kinetic parameters are derived from steady-state multigroup transport calculations. The effect of the reflectors is included not only in the critical mass determination but also in the kinetic behavior of the pellets through the effective lifetime. Although the hydrodynamic expansion is not considered, fuel burnup is taken into account to ascertain the time needed for maximum efficiency. This time is then compared to the disassembly time. A simple formalism is included that directly gives the microexplosion efficiency. Most of the numerical results are related to Li-D-reflected plutonium pellets. The ignition of the fission chain reactions is provided by fusion neutrons produced in the reflector, but the bootstrap mechanism between fission and fusion is not included.