issues. These include the material employed in the reactor walls, the cladding material for the fissile nuclear fuel, and the material used for retaining the fission products. In addition to long term resistance to irradiation, the materials used in a nuclear reactor must have excellent mechanical and corrosion properties in order to tolerate the thermal shocks as well as the high temperature a...

The contamination of Japan after the Fukushima accident has been investigated mainly for volatile fission products, but only sparsely for actinides such as plutonium. Only small releases of actinides were estimated in Fukushima. Plutonium is still omnipresent in the environment from previous atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. We investigated soil and plants sampled at different hot spots in Jap...

The study of fission yields has a major impact on the characterization and understanding process its applications. products have direct influence amount neutron poisons that limit fuel burnup evaluation decay heat reactor after shutdown. Fission yield represents synthesis experimental theoretical knowledge in order to perform best estimation mass independent product yields. Today, lack correlat...

We propose the use of a proton accelerator to run a slightly subcritical fast breeder and incinerator of minor actinides, and also the use of minor actinides to make a high bumup t%el, which can be burned in a reactor with a non-flattened core with a ratio of height to diameter (H/D= 1). By injecting medium-energy protons into a subcritical assembly, and by supplying external neutrons produced ...

Radiation shielding requirements for fusion reactors present different problems than those for fission reactors and accelerators. Fusion devices, particularly tokamak reactors, are complicated by geometry constraints that complicate disposition of fully effective shielding. This paper reviews some of these shielding issues and suggested solutions for optimizing the machine and biological shield...

For more than a year, ECN is engaged in a research programme on transmutation of actinides as well as of fission products by means of respectively fission and neutron capture. It is intended to contribute to international efforts, which evaluate recycling options of the nuclear waste problem. Besides studies on strategy and scenarios, efforts are made to demonstrate possibilities for transmutat...