Glossary
- Blanket:
-
Region surrounding the fuel core of a breeder reactor that contains fertile material to increase production of new fuel.
- Brayton cycle:
-
Method used to transfer fission heat energy to gas (e.g., helium or superheated carbon dioxide) for use in a gas turbine to generate electricity.
- Breeder:
-
Reactor that produces new fuel from fertile material at a faster rate than it burns fuel for energy production.
- Converter:
-
Reactor that produces less new fuel from fertile material than it burns for energy production.
- Coolant:
-
Liquid or gaseous medium used to remove fission heat from a reactor core.
- Core:
-
Region within a reactor occupied by the nuclear fuel that supports the fission chain reaction.
- Critical:
-
Condition where a fission chain reaction is stable with neutron production balancing losses at a nonzero power level.
- Electron volt (eV):
-
1 eV is the kinetic energy obtained by an electron moving across 1 V of electric potential 1 eV = 1.602 × 10−19J. Common multiples are...
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Knief, R.A. (2018). Nuclear Fission Power Plants. In: Tsoulfanidis, N. (eds) Nuclear Energy. Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-6618-9_22
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