Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Course structure
Period 1
2 x 2 h lectures
1 x 2 h exercises, starting next week (w37)
Pair work: seminar presentations on the
status of nuclear energy in selected
countries
Interim exam nr. 1
Period 2
1 x 2 h lectures
1 x 2 h exercises
Individual homework assignment
Interim exam nr. 2
Lectured by prof. Juhani Hyvrinen (room
3428); occasionally substituted by Dr. Heikki
Suikkanen (3406)
Exercises and homeworks tutored by
Ms. Anne Jordan (room 3409)
BH30A0201 NRD A2017 4
Homework schedule & guidance
Period 1:
the Seminar presentation guidance and topics will
be available in Moodle by Sep 15st (w37)
Seminar to be held on October 18th (w42).
Reserve all day for the seminar (9-16)!
Period 2:
Homework assignment and reporting guidance will
be distributed on the week of October 30th (w44)
Completed report to be turned in at the latest on
Monday, November 27th (w48)
Thus the homeworks will constitute about 30% of your total grade.
The parts of the atom are held together by respective binding energies
(measured in electron volts, eV; 1 eV = 1.619 J):
between the outermost electrons and the nucleus ~1-10 eV
between the protons and neutrons in the nucleus ~5-8
MeV
Carbon-12:
6 protons
6 neutrons
Fusion reactions in the sun provide the energy to sustain life on earth.
In addition, stars and supernovae have generated, in various nuclear
reactions, all elements beyond hydrogen (and some primordial helium)
[image: gosunstove.com]
BH30A0201 NRD A2017 17
Nuclear industry does not dump its wastes into environment but collects
them and provides for controlled disposal. Energy was concentrated, and
so is waste toxicity. BH30A0201 NRD A2017 20
Global electricity supply
90
80
Nettotuonti
Net import
70 Tuontia tai lauhdevoimaa
Import/conventional
Lauhdevoima
Conventional
60
Nuclear
Ydinvoima
50 Cogeneration, kaukolmp
Yhteistuotanto, municipal
Cogeneration, teollisuus
Yhteistuotanto, industrial
40 Windja&aurinkovoima
Tuuli- solar
30
Hydropower
Vesivoima
Consumption
Shkn kulutus
20
10
0
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020 2025 2030
[Ministry of Economy and the Employment, Climate and Energy Strategy (2016)]
BH30A0201 NRD A2017 22
Other uses of nuclear energy
Measurement techniques: radioactive tracers, activation analysis
Nuclear Engineering
Engineering is the skill of
using substances and materials to
produce something useful
utilising Laws of Nature, expressed in mathematic relations
between physically meaningful quantities.
Positrons, neutrinos and antineutrinos appear in certain -decay modes. Positron is the
antielectron upon contact, they annihilate each other, converting their total mass to
gamma rays (energetic photons).
BH30A0201 NRD A2017 26
Why are rest mass and charge so
important?
Nature works with conservation laws.
In low energy (everyday) physics,
mass is conserved
linear momentum and angular momentum are conserved
energy is conserved
electric charge is conserved.
Neutron number tells how many neutrons are present in the nucleus.
Nuclear stability
The more protons in the nucleus,
the higher mutual repulsion
Heavier nuclei need
more neutrons per proton
to remain stable
Light nuclei are stable when
~
Heavier nuclei are stable when
~ 1.5
The heaviest nuclei are all unstable
Alpha decay
Emission of a 4He nucleus
238 234
E.g. uranium-238: 92U 90Th + 42He
BH30A0201 NRD A2017 34
Alpha spectrum is a peak spectrum
Gamma decay
Decay chains
Frequently, the daughter of one decay event is itself
unstable, and undergoes further decay:
20 20
O F 20Ne (stable)
https://www-
nds.iaea.org/relnsd/vcharthtml/VChartHTML.html
The mass of one mole of atoms in grams (g) is given by its atomic
mass (weight).
Thus atomic masses can be used with units g/mol (gram-
mole in older literature)
Atomic masses have been tabulated for all known isotopes.
An alternative unit of atomic weights is the atomic mass unit, u
(earlier amu)
12
12
1 = 1 =
1
0.6022045 1024
24
= 1.66057 10
Mass is energy, 1 u = 931 MeV
BH30A0201 NRD A2017 44
This completes the lesson
We have discussed
what nuclear energy is
structure and size of the atom
nuclear stability, radioactive decay
how to calculate atomic and molecular masses
Additional material
Lectures 1-2
47
BH30A0201 NRD A2017
BH30A0201
Nuclear Reactor Design
Lectures 3-4, Autumn 2017
Atomic mass
1 u = 931 MeV
Carbon-12:
6 protons
6 neutrons
Proton number
Unstable nuclide
n(out) n(in)
2.8
Radioactive decay
Half-life
The time that it takes for half of the
sample to decay is called the half-
life (1/2 ) of the nuclide in question.
1 2
0 = 0 1/2 1/2 =
2
()
= 1 + 0
Aktiivisuus
= = 1 + 0
Aika t
Time
BH30A0201 NRD A2017 69
Decay chains
Amount and activity of nuclide in the decay chain is
calculated as follows:
Time rate of change of = Rate of production from Rate of decay to
or
= +
Reaction energetics
Energy conservation for reaction
+ +
includes kinetic energies of the particles and their rest-mass energies
2 :
+ + 2 + 2 = + + 2 + 2
Rearranging this,
+ + = + ( + ) 2
The change of kinetic energy of the particles equals the change in the rest
masses. The right hand side can be thought of as a reaction energy :
= + ( + ) 2
= + + ( + ) + + ( + )
and, because
+ = +
In other words, two protons and two neutrons bind together 6.4 times
more tightly than as single proton ties to a single neutron. This explains
why heavy nuclei may decay via alpha emission, but not deuteron
emission.
Fusion reactions
of light nuclei
release energy
Fission reactions
The tightest
of heavy nuclei
bound nuclei are
release energy
iron and nickel at
~ 56
We have discussed
Radioactive decay calculations
Nuclear reactions, reaction energetics
Binding energy calculation