Article: Nuclear Reactors

Nuclear Reactors

LARRY GILMAN

Nuclear reactors are complex devices in which fissionable elements such as uranium, thorium, or plutonium are made to undergo a sustainable nuclear chain reaction.

This chain reaction releases energy in the form of radiation that (a) sustains the chain reaction; (b) transmutes (i.e., alters the nuclear characteristics of) nearby atoms, including the nuclear fuel itself; and (c) may be harvested as heat. Transmutation in nuclear reactors of the common but weakly fissionable nuclide uranium-238 ( 238 U) into plutonium-239 ( 239 Pu) is an important source of explosive material for nuclear weapons, and heat from nuclear reactors is used to ...

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