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Fusion reactors are not subject to catastrophic meltdown. [121] It requires precise and controlled temperature, pressure and magnetic field parameters to produce net energy, and any damage or loss of required control would rapidly quench the reaction. [122] Fusion reactors operate with seconds or even microseconds worth of fuel at any moment.
The multiplication factor, k, is defined as (see nuclear chain reaction): k = number of neutrons in one generation / number of neutrons in preceding generation . If k is greater than 1, the chain reaction is supercritical, and the neutron population will grow exponentially.
The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011 occurred due to a loss-of-coolant accident. The circuits that provided electrical power to the coolant pumps failed causing a loss-of-core-cooling that was critical for the removal of residual decay heat which is produced even after active reactors are shut down and nuclear fission has ceased.
In nuclear engineering, the void coefficient (more properly called void coefficient of reactivity) is a number that can be used to estimate how much the reactivity of a nuclear reactor changes as voids (typically steam bubbles) form in the reactor moderator or coolant. Net reactivity in a reactor depends on several factors, one of which is the ...
The explosion of the Ivy Mike hydrogen bomb. The hydrogen bomb was the first device able to achieve fusion energy gain factor significantly larger than 1.. A fusion energy gain factor, usually expressed with the symbol Q, is the ratio of fusion power produced in a nuclear fusion reactor to the power required to maintain the plasma in steady state.
A boiling water reactor (BWR) is a type of nuclear reactor used for the generation of electrical power. It is the second most common type of electricity-generating nuclear reactor after the pressurized water reactor (PWR). BWR are thermal neutron reactors, where water is thus used both as a coolant and as a moderator, slowing down neutrons.
The four-factor formula, also known as Fermi's four factor formula is used in nuclear engineering to determine the multiplication of a nuclear chain reaction in an infinite medium. Four-factor formula: k ∞ = η f p ε {\displaystyle k_{\infty }=\eta fp\varepsilon } [ 1 ]
The mere fact that an assembly is supercritical does not guarantee that it contains any free neutrons at all. At least one neutron is required to "strike" a chain reaction, and if the spontaneous fission rate is sufficiently low it may take a long time (in 235 U reactors, as long as many minutes) before a chance neutron encounter starts a chain reaction even if the reactor is supercritical.