Table of Contents [hide]
- 1 What do the control rods accomplish in a nuclear reactor when they are placed between the fuel rods?
- 2 What happens to the fuel rods when they are used up?
- 3 What happens to the isotopes inside fuel rods once all the uranium has undergone fission?
- 4 How does a fusion reactor work?
- 5 How does a nuclear reactor go supercritical?
- 6 What factors affect the fissile content of a nuclear reactor?
What do the control rods accomplish in a nuclear reactor when they are placed between the fuel rods?
Control rods are used in nuclear reactors to control the rate of fission of the nuclear fuel – uranium or plutonium. Their compositions include chemical elements such as boron, cadmium, silver, hafnium, or indium, that are capable of absorbing many neutrons without themselves fissioning.
What happens inside a nuclear reactor?
Nuclear power plants use heat produced during nuclear fission to heat water. In nuclear fission, atoms are split apart to form smaller atoms, releasing energy. Fission takes place inside the reactor of a nuclear power plant. At the center of the reactor is the core, which contains uranium fuel.
What happens to the fuel rods when they are used up?
When fuel rods in a nuclear reactor are “spent,” or no longer usable, they are removed from the reactor core and replaced with fresh fuel rods. The spent fuel rods are still highly radioactive and continue to generate significant heat for decades.
What tasks are in reactor?
Reactor: Start reactor, Unlock manifolds. Security: Divert Power to security. Shields: Prime Shields, Divert power to shields. Storage: Fuel engines.
What happens to the isotopes inside fuel rods once all the uranium has undergone fission?
Even though the fission reaction has stopped, the spent fuel continues to give off heat from the decay of the radioactive elements that were created when the uranium atoms were split apart. Within a few years, the spent fuel cools in the pool and may be moved to a dry cask storage container at the power plant site.
Where do spent fuel rods go?
The fuel rods are combined into tall assemblies that are then placed into the reactor. It’s a solid when it goes into the reactor and a solid when it comes out.
How does a fusion reactor work?
The energy-producing mechanism in a fusion reactor is the joining together of two light atomic nuclei. When two nuclei fuse, a small amount of mass is converted into a large amount of energy. Mass can be converted to energy also by nuclear fission, the splitting of a heavy nucleus.
How do control rods work in a nuclear reactor?
Control rods can then be inserted into the reactor core to reduce the reaction rate or withdrawn to increase it. The heat created by fission turns the water into steam, which spins a turbine to produce carbon-free electricity.
How does a nuclear reactor go supercritical?
The left image shows the control rods (green) inserted fully into the reactor core, putting the reactor in a subcritical state. In the right image, the control rods are removed, allowing more neutrons to accelerate the fission chain reaction and go supercritical.
What is the role of a moderator in a nuclear reactor?
The moderator helps slow down the neutrons produced by fission to sustain the chain reaction. Control rods can then be inserted into the reactor core to reduce the reaction rate or withdrawn to increase it.
What factors affect the fissile content of a nuclear reactor?
Some of these factors are inherent to the fissile fuel or reactor materials themselves, such as the number of neutrons produced in a fission event or the amount of neutron absorption due to fuel rod casings or moderators.