Nuclear fission has been used as a reliable source for utility power in the United States for decades. Even in the 1940’s, long before the United States had a viable space program, the theoretical benefits of nuclear power as applied to space travel were being explored [Humble, et. al.]. These benefits include long-life operation and high performance, particularly in the form of vehicle power d...

Almost all major nuclear operations produce residues containing radioactive materials; in reactor operations, for example, the fission products, new elements (such as plutonium) produced by neutron irradiation and the unfissioned nuclear fuel are all radioactive. Some of this material can be put to further use: useful radioisotopes, for instance, can be extracted from the fission products and p...

Introduction Safe operation of a nuclear reactor depends to a large extent on the behaviour of different fission products generated within the fuel. While most of the fission products settle down as dissolved state in the fuel matrix or as separate phases, the gaseous products, xenon(Xe), and krypton(Kr), and the volatile products, iodine(I), tellurium(Te), cesium(Cs), and rubidium(Rb), underg...

We develop quantitative optimization criteria for transient digestion processes in simple animal tracts that can be modeled by a semi-batch reactor or plug flow reactor. Specifically, we determine the residence time that optimizes the average net energy intake over the total residence time. The net energy is measured by the total energy intake, less the cost of foraging and digestion. Precise v...

The technical principles and practices of the civil nuclear industry are described with particular reference to fission and its products, natural and artificial radioactivity elements principally concerned and their relationships, main types of reactor, safety issues, the fuel cycle, waste management, issues related to weapon proliferation, environmental considerations and possible future devel...

Although there have been some severe nuclear accidents such as Three Mile Island (USA), Chernobyl (Ukraine) and Fukushima (Japan), nuclear fission energy is still a source of clean energy that can substitute fossil fuels in a centralized way and in a great amount with commercial availability and economic competitiveness. Since the pressurized water reactor (PWR) is the most widely used nuclear ...

We have been studying -decay properties of nuclei far from the -stability line with the use of the 2nd generation of the gross theory and semi-gross theory. In the 2nd generation of the gross theory, the shell effects of nuclei are included only through the -decay Q-values. On the other hand, in the case of the semi-gross theory, other various shell effects of the parent nucleus are taken into ...

We have observed fallout from the recent Fukushima Dai-ichi reactor accident in samples of rainwater collected in the San Francisco Bay area. Gamma ray spectra measured from these samples show clear evidence of fission products--(131,132)I, (132)Te, and (134,137)Cs. The activity levels we have measured for these isotopes are very low and pose no health risk to the public.

We measured in situ the radiation-induced absorption of pure silica core fibers exposed to a fission nuclear reactor. We observed the growth of the 1.39m OH vibration band in polymer coated fiber. Three mechanisms are responsible for this effect: recoil protons, hydrogen diffusion, and a probable compaction effect. Based on this experiment, a fiber-optic neutron monitor prototype is proposed.