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Criticality is the normal operating condition of a nuclear reactor, in which nuclear fuel sustains a fission chain reaction.A reactor achieves criticality (and is said to be critical) when each fission releases a sufficient number of neutrons to sustain an ongoing series of nuclear reactions.
Nuclear criticality safety is a field of nuclear engineering dedicated to the prevention of nuclear and radiation accidents resulting from an inadvertent, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction. [1] Nuclear criticality safety is concerned with mitigating the consequences of a nuclear criticality accident.
Criticality (status), a milestone in the commissioning of a nuclear power plant; Criticality accident, an uncontrolled nuclear chain reaction; Nuclear criticality safety, the prevention of nuclear and radiation accidents resulting from an inadvertent, self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction; Prompt critical, an assembly for each nuclear fission ...
Criticality accidents are divided into one of two categories: Process accidents, where controls in place to prevent any criticality are breached;; Reactor accidents, which occur due to operator errors or other unintended events (e.g., during maintenance or fuel loading) in locations intended to achieve or approach criticality, such as nuclear power plants, nuclear reactors, and nuclear ...
The shape with minimal critical mass and the smallest physical dimensions is a sphere. Bare-sphere critical masses at normal density of some actinides are listed in the following table. Most information on bare sphere masses is considered classified, since it is critical to nuclear weapons design, but some documents have been declassified. [3]
Nuclear weapons employ high quality, highly enriched fuel exceeding the critical size and geometry (critical mass) necessary in order to obtain an explosive chain reaction. The fuel for energy purposes, such as in a nuclear fission reactor, is very different, usually consisting of a low-enriched oxide material (e.g. uranium dioxide , UO 2 ).
Nuclear reactor physics is the field of physics that studies and deals with the applied study and engineering applications of chain reaction to induce a controlled rate of fission in a nuclear reactor for the production of energy.
In nuclear engineering, prompt criticality describes a nuclear fission event in which criticality (the threshold for an exponentially growing nuclear fission chain reaction) is achieved with prompt neutrons alone and does not rely on delayed neutrons. As a result, prompt supercriticality causes a much more rapid growth in the rate of energy ...