In This Problem We Re Going Get A Rough Estimate The Amount Of Uranium Fuel It Would Take If The Us Recieved All Its El 1 (210.65 KiB) Viewed 70 times
In this problem, we're going get a rough estimate the amount of uranium fuel it would take if the US recieved all its electrical power from nuclear power plants. The size of a power plant in normally given as the about of electrical power it can produce when running a full capacity. This electrical power produced can be very different than the mechanical or thermal power that was required to produce this electricity. For example, power plant might have a "thermal efficiency" of 25% and so require 100 MWt (mega-watts of thermal power) to produce 25MWe (megawatts of electrical power). The efficiency will vary from plant to plant but an approximate range is from around 215% to 35%. Lets assume we have a 103 mWe electrical power plant that recieves its thermal energy from pressured water nuclear reactor (PWR) and has overall thermal efficiency of 30\%. You may want to use the following table of atomic masses: Table of masses 141Ba 140.9144 |||144Ba 143.9229 u 139Te 138.9347 u 141 Cs 140.9196 | 190kr 89.91952 u 191Kr 90.92344 u 92Kr 91.92615 u 94Zr 93.90632 ul 93Rb 92.92157 u 2350 235.0439 up 1.00728 u In 1.00867 u 1) What is the total thermal power generated by the reactor? Pthermal = MW Submit Your submissions: 1.073e10X Submitted: Sunday, May 15 at 1:10 PM Computed value: 1.073e10 Feedback: 2) Lets assume that all fission events are 235U + n 144 Ba + 90 Kr + 2n What is the rate of fission events in the reactor core? Rfission = /sec Submit
3) What is the mass of 235U fissioned in one year? Use = kg Submit 4) A key point here is that not all of the uranium fuel in the reactor is 235U. Most of it is actually a different isotope, 238U, which does not fission in standard reactors. Lets assume the fuel is "enriched\" so that 2.21% of the fuel is actually 235U by mass. What is the total mass of fuel is used in one year? Use total kg Submit
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