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Nuclear fuel process A graph comparing nucleon number against binding energy Close-up of a replica of the core of the research reactor at the Institut Laue-Langevin. Nuclear fuel refers to any substance, typically fissile material, which is used by nuclear power stations or other nuclear devices to generate energy.
Fission product yields by mass for thermal neutron fission of U-235 and Pu-239 (the two typical of current nuclear power reactors) and U-233 (used in the thorium cycle). This page discusses each of the main elements in the mixture of fission products produced by nuclear fission of the common nuclear fuels uranium and plutonium.
In nuclear engineering, fissile material is material that can undergo nuclear fission when struck by a neutron of low energy. [1] A self-sustaining thermal chain reaction can only be achieved with fissile material. The predominant neutron energy in a system may be typified by either slow neutrons (i.e., a thermal system) or fast neutrons.
U is a million times more than that released in the combustion of methane or from hydrogen fuel cells. [4] The products of nuclear fission, however, are on average far more radioactive than the heavy elements which are normally fissioned as fuel, and remain so for significant amounts of time, giving rise to a nuclear waste problem.
To improve the fuel's sensitivity to neutrons, a neutron moderator is used, in this case highly purified graphite. [2] [3] The reactors consisted of a huge cube of this material (the "pile") made up of many smaller blocks and drilled through horizontally to make a large number of fuel channels. Uranium fuel was placed in aluminium canisters and ...
A nuclear reactor core is the portion of a nuclear reactor containing the nuclear fuel components where the nuclear reactions take place and the heat is generated. [1] Typically, the fuel will be low- enriched uranium contained in thousands of individual fuel pins.
The thorium fuel cycle is a nuclear fuel cycle that uses an isotope of thorium, 232 Th, as the fertile material. In the reactor, 232 Th is transmuted into the fissile artificial uranium isotope 233 U which is the nuclear fuel. Unlike natural uranium, natural thorium contains only trace amounts of fissile material (such as 231 Th
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.