Physics of nuclear reactors

The lectures will be recorded and made available through Moodle/Switchtube. 

The exercises associated with each lecture will be provided through Moodle each week; their solutions the week after. 

Summary

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.

Content

• Brief review of nuclear physics

• Nuclear fission
  - Characteristics - Nuclear fuel - Introductory elements of neutronics.
  - Fissile and fertile materials.

• Element of reactor design
  - flux and heat source distribution; properties of different coolants and technological consequences
• LWR reactors technology
  - overview of the functional scheme of PWR and BWRs; fuel elements; compensation of excess reactivity in PWRs and BWRs (boron, etc,)

• Neutron diffusion and slowing down
  - Monoenergetic neutrons - Angular and scalar flux
  - Diffusion theory as simplified case of transport theory - Neutron slowing down through elastic scattering.
• Multiplying media (reactors)
  - Multiplication factors - Criticality condition in simple cases.
  - Thermal reactors - Neutron spectra - Multizone reactors - Multigroup theory and general criticality condition - Heterogeneous reactors.
• Reactor kinetics
  - Point reactor model: prompt and delayed transients - Practical applications.
• Reactivity variations and control
  - Short, medium and long term reactivity changes. Different means of control.
• Advanced reactor designs
  - Breeding and transmutation; introduction into Gen-IV reactors