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This book provides engineers with a comprehensive understanding of nuclear reactor physics and neutronics, emphasizing the importance of simple models to validate complex computational results. It explains the rationale behind neutron slowing down and offers a straightforward method to evaluate the resonance escape probability in Fermi's 4-factors formula. The book includes exercises to assess the remaining three factors and demonstrates how to derive the diffusion approximation from the Boltzmann equation. It covers both one-group and two-group diffusion models, applying them to predict the reactivity of a nuclear reactor core. Special attention is given to the selection of the migration area. Additionally, the book addresses delayed neutrons, reactor kinetics, fission product poisoning, fuel evolution, fuel management, critical size, temperature effects, and xenon oscillations. Originally written for students, it contains 28 exercises with solutions provided in the appendix, making it an invaluable resource for both learning and practical application in the field.
List of contents
1. Chain reaction principle and effective multiplication factor.- 2. Reminders.- 3. Principle of fast neutron reactors.- 4. Why does it make sense to slow down neutrons?.- 5. Fermi's 4-factors formula.
About the author
Bertrand Mercier graduated at Ecole Polytechnique in 1971. He got a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics. Researcher at National Research Institute in Informatics and automatic (INRIA) then at the École Polytechnique, he has approximately 40 publications in scientific journals.
He taught at the École Centrale Paris, the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, before being associate professor at the École Polytechnique for 12 years. At the same time, he entered in 1979 in the Limeil Centre of Studies of the Military Applications Division of the Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) to become leader of the numerical software and mathematics group. In 1987, he joined the Space & Strategic Systems Division of EADS as the head of the scientific software development.
Summary
This book provides engineers with a comprehensive understanding of nuclear reactor physics and neutronics, emphasizing the importance of simple models to validate complex computational results. It explains the rationale behind neutron slowing down and offers a straightforward method to evaluate the resonance escape probability in Fermi's 4-factors formula. The book includes exercises to assess the remaining three factors and demonstrates how to derive the diffusion approximation from the Boltzmann equation. It covers both one-group and two-group diffusion models, applying them to predict the reactivity of a nuclear reactor core. Special attention is given to the selection of the migration area. Additionally, the book addresses delayed neutrons, reactor kinetics, fission product poisoning, fuel evolution, fuel management, critical size, temperature effects, and xenon oscillations. Originally written for students, it contains 28 exercises with solutions provided in the appendix, making it an invaluable resource for both learning and practical application in the field.
