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Godzilla is helping ITER prepare for tokamak assembly
ITER employees stand by Godzilla, the most powerful commercially available industrial robot available. (Photo: ITER)
Many people are familiar with Godzilla as a giant reptilian monster that emerged from the sea off the coast of Japan, the product of radioactive contamination. These days, there is a new Godzilla, but it has a positive—and entirely fact-based—association with nuclear energy. This one has emerged inside the Tokamak Assembly Preparation Building of ITER in southern France.
Drew E. Kornreich
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 115 | Number 1 | September 1993 | Pages 50-61
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE93-1
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Solutions of fissile materials are often encountered during spent-fuel reprocessing. To estimate the hazards from accidental criticalities in these solutions, models have been developed to understand better the dynamics involved. Accurate representation of reactivity feedback mechanisms is a crucial part of such models. Reactivity feedback from uniform volumetric solution expansion is studied. For faster transients, density redistribution may also occur because of a variation of nuclear energy as a function of position in the assembly. Neutronic spectral temperature reactivity effects are studied by creating temperature-dependent cross sections from ENDF/B-VI data. The volumetric and temperature reactivity feedback coefficients are determined for the CRAC, KEWB-5, SILENE, and SHEBA solution assemblies. Spectral temperature coefficients are also calculated for poisoned, unpoisoned, and reflected plutonium solutions. Feedback coefficients are seen to be functions of geometry and isotopic contents of the assemblies. Results for plutonium solutions agree with other calculations, which confirms the possibility of autocatalytic excursions in large, dilute solutions.