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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.
D. C. Wade, R. G. Bucher
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 64 | Number 2 | October 1977 | Pages 517-538
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE77-A27387
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Flux weighting for the generation of broad-group cross sections is designed to preserve eigenvalue, flux spectrum, and reaction rates; however, it will not preserve adjoint spectrum and reactivity worths. Bilinear (flux-adjoint) weighting preserves all of the above quantities except reaction rates. Bilinear weighting also makes the eigenvalue of the broad-group calculation less sensitive to distortions of the spectrum away from the fundamental mode over which the cross sections were collapsed than is the case when flux weighting is used. A series of 29- and 11-group numerical tests has been made to assess the size of errors (relative to a fine-group standard) in eigenvalue, reaction rate ratios, isotopic worth components, and spectral shapes resulting from the use of the two energy collapse procedures. The errors in adjoint spectrum and calculated worth of scattering materials are found to be large when flux weighting is used.