NUEN 301 Lecture 4: 4.Fission-withblanks
4 Apr 2016
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We know that ssion of a heavy nucleus releases a relatively large quantity of energy. Oddly enough, fusion of two light nuclei also releases a relatively large quantity of energy. Fissioning a medium-mass nucleus or fusing two of them would, on the other hand, consume energy. In this chapter we will explore this question. Nuclear ssion reactors actually produce new fuel as they operate. If they produce more useful fuel than they destroy, they are called breeder reactors. In this chapter we will also brie y discuss and quantify this. The mass of a nucleus is slightly less than the sum of the masses of the individual neutrons and protons contained in it. This di erence in mass is called the mass defect and is given by. M = zmp + n mn mnucleus(z, a) , (4. 1) where mp is the mass of the proton (mp = 1. 007227 amu1), mn is the mass of the neutron (mp =
