Portal:Nuclear technology
The Nuclear Technology Portal
Introduction
- Nuclear technology is technology that involves the nuclear reactions of atomic nuclei. Among the notable nuclear technologies are nuclear reactors, nuclear medicine and nuclear weapons. It is also used, among other things, in smoke detectors and gun sights. (Full article...)
- Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear power plants. Nuclear decay processes are used in niche applications such as radioisotope thermoelectric generators in some space probes such as Voyager 2. Generating electricity from fusion power remains the focus of international research. (Full article...)
- A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb types release large quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. (Full article...)
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The liquid thermal diffusion process was not one of the enrichment technologies initially selected for use in the Manhattan Project, and was developed independently by Philip H. Abelson and other scientists at the United States Naval Research Laboratory. This was primarily due to doubts about the process's technical feasibility, but inter-service rivalry between the United States Army and United States Navy also played a part.
Pilot plants were built at the Anacostia Naval Air Station and the Philadelphia Navy Yard, and a production facility at the Clinton Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This was the only production-scale liquid thermal diffusion plant ever built. It could not enrich uranium sufficiently for use in an atomic bomb, but it could provide slightly enriched feed for the Y-12 calutrons and the K-25 gaseous diffusion plants. It was estimated that the S-50 plant had sped up production of enriched uranium used in the Little Boy bomb employed in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by a week.
The S-50 plant ceased production in September 1945, but it was reopened in May 1946, and used by the United States Army Air Forces Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft (NEPA) project. The plant was demolished in the late 1940s. (Full article...)
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Did you know?
- ... that plutonium produced in the nuclear reactors at the Hanford Engineer Works was used in the Fat Man bomb used in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945?
- ... that T. K. Jones thought that a nuclear war was survivable if "there are enough shovels to go around"?
- ... that under college president Arthur Bronwell in 1959, Worcester Polytechnic Institute built one of the first nuclear research reactors at an American university?
- ... that Helen Steven shared the Gandhi International Peace Award for her opposition to the nuclear submarine base in Scotland?
- ... that before becoming a successful children's author, Myron Levoy was an engineer doing research on nuclear-powered spaceships for a mission to Mars?
- ... that the British Tychon missile was developed from a Barnes Wallis concept to keep strike aircraft safe while dropping nuclear bombs?
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Selected biography -
In 1919, Compton was awarded one of the first two National Research Council Fellowships that allowed students to study abroad. He chose to go to the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory in England, where he studied the scattering and absorption of gamma rays. Further research along these lines led to the discovery of the Compton effect. He used X-rays to investigate ferromagnetism, concluding that it was a result of the alignment of electron spins, and studied cosmic rays, discovering that they were made up principally of positively charged particles.
During World War II, Compton was a key figure in the Manhattan Project that developed the first nuclear weapons. His reports were important in launching the project. In 1942, he became a member of the executive committee, and then head of the "X" projects overseeing the Metallurgical Laboratory, with responsibility for producing nuclear reactors to convert uranium into plutonium, finding ways to separate the plutonium from the uranium and to design an atomic bomb. Compton oversaw Enrico Fermi's creation of Chicago Pile-1, the first nuclear reactor, which went critical on December 2, 1942. The Metallurgical Laboratory was also responsible for the design and operation of the X-10 Graphite Reactor at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Plutonium began being produced in the Hanford Site reactors in 1945.
After the war, Compton became chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis. During his tenure, the university formally desegregated its undergraduate divisions, named its first female full professor, and enrolled a record number of students after wartime veterans returned to the United States. (Full article...)
Nuclear technology news
- 9 May 2024 – Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran–Israel relations
- Iran warns that it will build a nuclear weapon if Israel continues to target its nuclear facilities. (Al Jazeera)
- 25 April 2024 – Russia–NATO relations
- Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warns that Russia will make NATO nuclear weapons in Poland one of its primary targets if they are deployed there. (The Jerusalem Post)
- 23 April 2024 – North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
- North Korea claims that it tested a new command-and-control system in a simulated nuclear counterstrike. (CNN)
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