Miniature nuclear reactor as a project?

[Karthikthe]

i have desided to make a miniature nuclear reactor as my science project .i beg the helps from all physicsforum members...

 

[cristo]

I remember seeing a thread like this before. The conclusion made then was that it is not safe for a student to make a nuclear reactor. Perhaps you should look at making something else for your science project.

 

[Morbius]

i have desided to make a miniature nuclear reactor as my science project .i beg the helps from all physicsforum members...

Karthikthe,

FORGET IT!

A true critical nuclear reactor is INAPPROPRIATE as a science project.

It's beyond the technical competence of someone doing science projects, it's not safe
without the requisite expertise, it's too expensive and it's ILLEGAL!

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist

 

[turbo]

This has been pretty thoroughly hashed over here:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=169138

Choose something safe to build (with materials that are legal for you to possess).

 

[vanesch]

This discussion is hilarious !

 

[univeruser]

Hopefully, you ain't trying anything with uranium-238 or thorium.

I really don't know if this could be possible, but you could try americium that you can find from smoke detectors. I believe over some 70 years or so, it turns useless for your purpose as it decays into neptunium. Moral? Buy new smoke alarms! (Well, I don't think there were smoke alarms back in 1940. If there were, they're going to be rare out now)

As for the "americium reactor" (no naming credits accepted), you can try bombarding the electrons onto the americium using a cathode ray tube (silly idea, I must say. But you never know, it just might work).

Let's see if anyone can rectify this post (if wrong, of course) and discuss the "reactor".

 

[Astronuc]

The first artificial, self-sustaining, nuclear chain reaction was initiated within CP-1, on December 2, 1942.

Americium was first obtained in 1944 by Seaborg et al who were bombarding plutonium with neutrons. Neptunium and plutonium were discovered in 1940, and curium was discovered in 1944 shortly before americium was confirmed.

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1951 was awarded jointly to Edwin Mattison McMillan and Glenn Theodore Seaborg "for their discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements"
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1951/index.html
http://www.osti.gov/cgi-bin/rd_accomplishments/display_biblio.cgi?id=ACC0048&numPages=42&fp=N

The New Element Americium (Atomic Number 95)
http://www.osti.gov/cgi-bin/rd_accomplishments/display_biblio.cgi?id=ACC0046&numPages=43&fp=N

The New Element Curium (Atomic Number 96)
http://www.osti.gov/cgi-bin/rd_accomplishments/display_biblio.cgi?id=ACC0049&numPages=13&fp=N

http://isswprod.lbl.gov/Seaborg/bio.htm

There is no need to discuss reactor concepts that students can build. There are other appropriate threads in which to discuss reactor technology. Thread locked.