Butterworth-Heinemann is an imprint of Elsevier 30 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803, USA Linacre House, Jordan Hill, Oxford OX2 8DP, UK Copyright # 2009, Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science & Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone: (þ44) 1865 843830, fax: (þ44) 1865 853333, E-mail: [email protected]. You may also complete your request online via the Elsevier homepage (http://elsevier.com), by selecting “Support & Contact” then “Copyright and Permission” and then “Obtaining Permissions.” Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Murray, Raymond LeRoy, 1920- Nuclear energy : an introduction to the concepts, systems, and applications of nuclear processes / author, Raymond L. Murray. – 6th ed. p. cm. 1. Nuclear engineering. 2. Nuclear energy. I. Title. TK9145.M87 2008 621.48–dc22 2008039209 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-0-12-370547-1 For information on all Butterworth–Heinemann publications visit our Web site at www.elsevierdirect.com Printed in the United States of America 08 09 10 11 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 For Elizabeth, Steve and Carol, Ilah and Jim, Marshall and Tonia, Tucker and Lin, Michael, Nancy and Rob, Jim and Susan, Nick and Katy, Andy and Nicole, Ashley and Jesse, Alfia and Art, Joshua, Kathryn and Doug, Ian and Barb, Ryan and Catharine, Kerri, Amber, Saura and Kevin, Amos, Hannah, Ben, Kelsey, Alfred, Andrew, Makena, Madeleine, Merritt, Jamie, Sidney, Dominique, Ethan, Lauren, Jillian, Evan, Adrian, and Natalie Preface The prospects for continued and new nuclear power plants in the United States have improved greatly since the fifth edition was written. In what is called a nuclear renaissance, many utilities have made application to the Nuclear Regu- latory Commission for license extension and approval for new reactor construc- tion. Nuclear reactors are planned that combat global warming, conserve nuclear fuel, support desalination, and produce hydrogen for transportation. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, applications of nuclear pro- cesses have become more important. Detectors of nuclear materials entering the United States are being installed, and physical protection of nuclear facilities has been greatly enhanced. The classical method of collecting information by consultation of books, reports, and articles in a library has been essentially replaced by use of Internet search engines, especially Google. Often, it is more convenient to try search words or phrases instead of typing in the URL of a Web site. The down side of Internet use is the omission of dates of posting, the lack of peer review of Web contents, and the tendency of sites to vanish. These problems are partly balanced by the wealth of information made available conveniently and instantly. I am convinced that student learning is enhanced by performing calculations on nuclear quantities. The new edition provides Exercises, solvable by hand-held calculator, with Answers to Exercises given in the Appendix. Computer programs in Qbasic, Excel, and MATLAB for the solution of com- puter exercises in the text can be found at http://elsevierdirect.com/compa- nions/9780123705471. For faculty who use the text in an academic course, instructor support materi- als, including solutions to exercises and PowerPoint slides, are available by regis- tering at http://textbooks.elsevier.com. As stated in the preface to the first edition (1975), the book “is designed for use by anyone who wishes to know about the role of nuclear energy in our soci- ety or to learn nuclear concepts for use in professional work.” I hope that the book will benefit both future nuclear leaders and interested members of the public. Each of the editions has dealt with events and trends. Included were the need for new and different sources of energy, United States government activities and reorganizations, the Arab oil embargo, the stagnation of nuclear power, the TMI-2 and Chernobyl accidents, the end of the Cold War, growth in applications of radioisotopes and radiation, the persistent nuclear waste problem, continued safe plant operation, and predictions of a brighter nuclear future. Comm unicati on by e-mail (mur [email protected] du) with teachers, students, and other users of the book will be most welcome. xvi Preface Many persons have provided valuable ideas and information. They are recog- nized at appropriate places in the book. The author has appreciated the interac- tion with Dr. Randy J. Jost of Utah State University and welcomes his continued upgrading of computer programs and the creation of slides and other material for use by instructors. Thanks go to Dr. Keith E. Holbert of Arizona State Univer- sity for his thorough review of the complete manuscript of this book. Special thanks are due Nancy Reid Baker for vital computer support, for preparation of artwork, and for formatting copy to ensure completeness and correctness. Thanks are due members of the Elsevier team, who provided advice and prepared the text for publication—Joseph Hayton, Publisher; Maria Alonso, Assis- tant Editor; Eric DeCicco, Senior Designer; Anne McGee, Production Manager; and Suja Narayana, Project Manager. I appreciated encouragement by my wife, Elizabeth Reid Murray. RAYMOND L. MURRAY Raleigh, North Carolina, 2008 About the Author Raymond L. Murray (Ph.D., University of Tennessee) is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Nuclear Engineering of North Carolina State University. His techni- cal interests include reactor analysis, nuclear criticality safety, radioactive waste management, and applications of computers. Dr. Murray studied under J. Robert Oppenheimer at the University of California at Berkeley. In the Manhattan Project of World War II, he contributed to the uranium isotope separation process at Berkeley and Oak Ridge. In the early 1950s, he helped found the first university nuclear engineering program and the first university nuclear reactor. During his 30 years of teaching and research in reactor analysis at North Carolina State, he taught many of our lea- ders in universities and industry throughout the world. He is the author of text- books in physics and nuclear technology and the recipient of a number of awards, including the Eugene P. Wigner Reactor Physicist Award of the American Nuclear Society in 1994. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society, and a member of several honorary, scientific, and engineering societies. Since retirement from the university, Dr. Murray has been a consultant on crit- icality for the Three Mile Island Recovery Program, served as chairman of the North Carolina Radiation Protection Commission, and served as chairman of the North Carolina Low-Level Radioactive Waste Management Authority. He pro- vides an annual lecture at MIT for the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations. CHAPTER Energy 1 OUR MATERIAL world is composed of many substances distinguished by their chemi- cal, mechanical, and electrical properties. They are found in nature in various physical states—the familiar solid, liquid, and gas, along with the ionic “plasma.” However, the apparent diversity of kinds and forms of material is reduced by the knowledge that there are only a little more than 100 distinct chemical elements and that the chemical and physical features of substances depend merely on the strength of force bonds between atoms. In turn, the distinctions between the elements of nature arise from the num- ber and arrangement of basic particles—electrons, protons, and neutrons. At both the atomic and nuclear levels, the structure of elements is determined by internal forces and energy. 1.1 FORCES AND ENERGY A limited number of basic forces existÀgravitational, electrostatic, electromag- netic, and nuclear. Associated with each of these is the ability to do work. Thus energy in different forms may be stored, released, transformed, transferred, and “used” in both natural processes and man-made devices. It is often convenient to view nature in terms of only two basic entities—particles and energy. Even this distinction can be removed, because we know that matter can be converted into energy and vice versa. Let us review some principles of physics needed for the study of the release of nuclear energy and its conversion into thermal and electrical form. We recall that if a constant force F is applied to an object to move it a distance s, the amount of work done is the product Fs. As a simple example, we pick up a book from the floor and place it on a table. Our muscles provide the means to lift against the force of gravity on the book. We have done work on the object, which now possesses stored energy (potential energy), because it could do work if allowed to fall back to the original level. Now a force F acting on a mass m provides an acceleration a, given by Newton’s law F ¼ ma. Starting from rest, the object gains a speed u, 3 4 CHAPTER 1 Energy ¼ 1 u2 and at any instant has energy of motion (kinetic energy) in amount Ek 2 m . For objects falling under the force of gravity, we find that the potential energy is reduced as the kinetic energy increases, but the sum of the two types remains con- stant. This is an example of the principle of conservation of energy. Let us apply this principle to a practical situation and perform some illustrative calculations. As we know, falling water provides one primary source for generating electri- cal energy. In a hydroelectric plant, river water is collected by a dam and allowed to fall through a considerable distance.