Lecture

Nuclear Fission: Total Cross Section Analysis

Graph Chat

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.

In course

PHYS-443: Physics of nuclear reactors

In this course, one acquires an understanding of the basic neutronics interactions occurring in a nuclear fission reactor as well as the conditions for establishing and controlling a nuclear chain reaction. ...

Description

This lecture covers the total cross section data for nuclear fission, discussing the energy dependence of incident neutrons and target nuclei. It explores the cross sections of various elements, the transport cross section, neutron-producing reactions, the Doppler effect, and uncertainties in cross sections. The lesson also delves into fission reactions, binding energy, probability of fission with different neutron energies, and the energy release from fission. It explains the practical fission fuels, comparison of cross sections between fissile and fertile fuels, fission fragments, delayed neutrons, and radiological hazards associated with fission products.

Instructors (3)

Andreas Pautz

Teaching & PhD PhD Students Sofia Portolan, Michel Saliba, Bishal Torrente, Alexis Paul Boris Claude Dupont-Bembinoff, Cynthia Camila Güttlein Past EPFL PhD Students Ting Zhu, Vladimir Vladimirov Brankov, Boris Aviv Hombourger, Damar Canggih Wicaksono, Petra Mala, Adolfo Rais, Valentyn Bykov, Daniel Jerôme Siefman, Evgeny Nikitin, Dionysios Chionis, Oskari Ville Pakari, Friederike Bostelmann, Jiani Gao, Efstathios Vlassopoulos, Alessandro Scolaro, Stefan Radman, Alexander Aures, Lubomír Bures, Ahmed Salah

Mathieu Hursin

Current work I'm currently heavily involved in the nuclear data community and with technical work towards the improvement of the latest version of the European library (JEFF). I'm leading an OECD/NEA subgroup in that direction. I'm also leading a Euratom project towards the production of multi-physics experimental data suitable for the validation of high-fidelity, high-resolution simulation tools. After a doctoral thesis on the high-fidelity modeling of control rod ejection in a pressurized water reactor at

Carlo Fiorina

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Energy engineering

Nuclear power: Topics in nuclear power

Physics

Nuclear physics: Topics in nuclear physics

Related concepts (32)

Nuclear chain reaction

In nuclear physics, a nuclear chain reaction occurs when one single nuclear reaction causes an average of one or more subsequent nuclear reactions, thus leading to the possibility of a self-propagating series of these reactions. The specific nuclear reaction may be the fission of heavy isotopes (e.g., uranium-235, 235U). A nuclear chain reaction releases several million times more energy per reaction than any chemical reaction.

Nuclear fission

Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into two or more smaller nuclei. The fission process often produces gamma photons, and releases a very large amount of energy even by the energetic standards of radioactive decay. Nuclear fission was discovered on 19 December 1938 in Berlin by German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann. Physicists Lise Meitner and her nephew Otto Robert Frisch explained it theoretically in January 1939. Frisch named the process "fission" by analogy with biological fission of living cells.

Nuclear fission product

Nuclear fission products are the atomic fragments left after a large atomic nucleus undergoes nuclear fission. Typically, a large nucleus like that of uranium fissions by splitting into two smaller nuclei, along with a few neutrons, the release of heat energy (kinetic energy of the nuclei), and gamma rays. The two smaller nuclei are the fission products. (See also Fission products (by element)). About 0.2% to 0.4% of fissions are ternary fissions, producing a third light nucleus such as helium-4 (90%) or tritium (7%).

Fast-neutron reactor

A fast-neutron reactor (FNR) or fast-spectrum reactor or simply a fast reactor is a category of nuclear reactor in which the fission chain reaction is sustained by fast neutrons (carrying energies above 1 MeV or greater, on average), as opposed to slow thermal neutrons used in thermal-neutron reactors. Such a fast reactor needs no neutron moderator, but requires fuel that is relatively rich in fissile material when compared to that required for a thermal-neutron reactor.

Spent nuclear fuel

Spent nuclear fuel, occasionally called used nuclear fuel, is nuclear fuel that has been irradiated in a nuclear reactor (usually at a nuclear power plant). It is no longer useful in sustaining a nuclear reaction in an ordinary thermal reactor and, depending on its point along the nuclear fuel cycle, it will have different isotopic constituents than when it started. Nuclear fuel rods become progressively more radioactive (and less thermally useful) due to neutron activation as they are fissioned, or "burnt" in the reactor.

Related lectures (64)

Introduction to Nuclear Engineering: Chain Reactions and Fuel Cycles

Explores chain reactions, criticality, reactor types, and fuel cycles in nuclear engineering.

Introduction to Nuclear Engineering

Introduces nuclear engineering, covering reactions, chain reactions, fuel cycle, criticality, and multiplication factors.

Nuclear Fission: Energy Release and Neutron Interactions

Explores nuclear fission, energy release, fission neutrons, and practical fuels in a nuclear reactor.

Neutron chain-reacting systems

Explores practical fission fuels, chain reactions, and multiplication factors in nuclear reactors.

Physics of Nuclear Reactors: Fundamentals and Advanced Concepts