What happens outside the reactor remains the same as if we were burning fossil fuels, we are simply generating steam to power turbines. .
What is a nuclear reaction? Well a nuclear reaction is generally described as follows:.
a + X Y + b .
Here, a is an incident particle, X is a target nucleus, Y is a residual nucleus, and b is an emitted particle.( Sekimoto, p 11) In the case of our light water power reactor we will fill in the above equation as follows: a will be a thermal neutron, X is the nucleus of a Uranium 235, Y can be a multitude of elements, however most of the time it turn out being Barium 141 + Krypton 92 or Xenon 140 +Strontium 94, finally b will be 3 fast neutrons if Y is Ba141 + Kr92 or 2 fast neutrons if Y is Xe140 +Sr94. As you can see it can be deduced that the two equations for our reactor will be as follows: Thermal neutron + U235 Ba141 + Kr92 +3 Fast neutrons + Energy in the form of heat or Thermal neutron + U235 Xe140 + Sr94+2 Fast neutrons + Energy in the form of heat.(Cutnell & Johnson, p971-972) We will use these equations to further are exploration of are reactor. First of all it must be noted that compared with chemical reactions, nuclear reactions are much less likely to occur. The first reason for this is, that a nucleus is much smaller than an atom and molecule, and collisions are less likely to take place. The second reason is that nuclei are positively charged, and thus have difficulty in approaching each other because of the repulsive Coulomb force. High energy is usually required to overcome the Coulomb force. Since the neutron has no electric charge, there is no Coulomb barrier and a high energy is not necessary. (Sekimoto, p 17) So what in the world does that mean? Well this gives us insight to both what are fuel must be as well as, what are moderator is and must be.
The fuel used in our reactor must accomplish two jobs. First of all, it must be able to fission, that is it's nucleus must be able to be split.
