Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, a nuclear reaction is a process in which two nuclei, or a nucleus and an external subatomic particle, collide to produce one or more new nuclides. Thus, a nuclear reaction must cause a transformation of at least one nuclide to another.
A fission fragment reactor is a nuclear reactor that generates electricity by decelerating an ion beam of fission byproducts instead of using nuclear reactions to generate heat. By doing so, it bypasses the Carnot cycle and can achieve efficiencies of up to 90% instead of 40–45% attainable by efficient turbine-driven thermal reactors.
A fission nuclear power plant is generally composed of: a nuclear reactor, in which the nuclear reactions generating heat take place; a cooling system, which removes the heat from inside the reactor; a steam turbine, which transforms the heat into mechanical energy; an electric generator, which transforms the mechanical energy into electrical ...
What is nuclear fusion, and how did a team of international scientists in California succeed in achieving what Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm characterized as a breakthrough? Explained: What ...
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.
Nuclear engineering was born in 1938, with the discovery of nuclear fission. [7] The first artificial nuclear reactor, CP-1, was designed by a team of physicists who were concerned that Nazi Germany might also be seeking to build a bomb based on nuclear fission.
According to the patent application [5] the reactor design has some notable characteristics, that sets it apart from other reactor designs. It uses uranium hydride (UH 3) "low-enriched" to 5% uranium-235—the remainder is uranium-238—as the nuclear fuel, rather than the usual metallic uranium or uranium dioxide that composes the fuel rods of contemporary light-water reactors.
The world's first and only nuclear power plant that put Gen IV reactors into commercial use is Shidao Bay Nuclear Power Plant. The reactor is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor, started its building process on September 21 2014, [75] started to generate power December 20, 2021, [76] and was put into commercial operation in December 12, 2023 ...