Nuclear fuel
Nuclear fuel is a material that can be consumed in a nuclear reaction to produce nuclear energy, by analogy to chemical fuel that is burned for energy. Nuclear fuels are the most dense sources of energy available. Nuclear fuels contain more than one million times as much energy as the same volume of coal.
Most nuclear fuels contain heavy fissile elements. When their nucleus splits they emit enough neutrons to split others in a nuclear chain-reaction. The most common nuclear fuels are uranium and plutonium. Uranium is natural, but plutonium is made in a breeder reactor.
Some nuclear fuels are not used in a nuclear reactor.[1] They power radioisotope thermoelectric generators.
Nuclear Fuel Media
A fuel assembly for a Russian VVER nuclear power plant
Diagram of nuclear waste and the nuclear fuel cycle
Close-up of a replica of the metal plate fuel of the research reactor at the Institut Laue-Langevin
The thermal conductivity of zirconium metal and uranium dioxide as a function of temperature
PWR fuel assembly (also known as a fuel bundle) This fuel assembly is from a pressurized water reactor of the nuclear-powered passenger and cargo ship NS Savannah. Designed and built by the Babcock & Wilcox Company.
CANDU fuel bundles, each about 50 cm long, 10 cm in diameter.
Photo of a magnox nuclear fuel rod.
0.845 mm TRISO fuel particle which has been cracked, showing multiple layers that are coating the spherical kernel
RBMK reactor fuel rod holder 1 – distancing armature; 2 – fuel rods shell; 3 – fuel tablets.
ATR Core The Advanced Test Reactor at Idaho National Laboratory uses plate-type fuel in a clover leaf arrangement. The blue glow around the core is known as Cherenkov radiation.
Notes
- ↑ Nuclear Fusion Power WNA. Retrieved 2011-03-23.