How to Calculate Energy Released in Nuclear Fusion

[frazzle96]

Hi,

I'm doing some coursework on nuclear fusion, and am trying to calculate the energy released by fusing a tritium and a deuterium atom together. I used the equation:

( Σ mass (reactants) - Σ mass (products) ) x 931.5 MeV/amu = Binding energy.

and Deuterium + Tritium = Helium + neutron

I know the value should be about 17.58 MeV, however when I did it it came out as about 18.1.

The values I used are Triton: 3.0160492u , Deuteron: 2.0135532u , Helium nucleus: 4.0015061u and a neutron: 1.0086649u.

Thanks in advance

Frazer

 

[Bill_K]

You're off by about 0.5 MeV, which is the mass of an electron. Are the values you quoted the mass of the atoms or the nuclei?

 

[frazzle96]

ah, I think the value I used for tritium was the atomic mass rather than the mass of the nuclei... thanks very much!