{"id":26751,"date":"2024-09-21T03:20:30","date_gmt":"2024-09-20T21:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=26751"},"modified":"2025-04-08T04:28:04","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T22:58:04","slug":"criticality-in-a-nuclear-reactor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/criticality-in-a-nuclear-reactor\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Criticality in a Nuclear Reactor?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>About Criticality in a Nuclear Reactor:<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Nuclear reactors use uranium fuel rods\u2014long, slender, zirconium metal tubes containing pellets of fissionable material to create energy through fission.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fission<\/strong> is the <strong>process of splitting the nuclei of uranium atoms to release neutrons<\/strong> that <strong>in turn split more atoms<\/strong>, releasing more neutrons.\n<ul>\n<li>Fission <strong>produces a great deal of energy<\/strong> in the form of very high heat and radiation.<\/li>\n<li>That\u2019s why reactors are housed in structures sealed under thick metal-reinforced concrete domes.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Power plants harness this energy<\/strong> and heat to produce steam to drive generators that <strong>produce electricity.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Criticalitymeans<\/strong> that a <strong>reactor is controlling a sustained fission chain reaction<\/strong>, where <strong>each fission<\/strong> event <strong>releases a sufficient number of neutrons to maintain<\/strong> an <strong>ongoing series of reactions.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>This is the <strong>normal state of nuclear power generation<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fuel rods<\/strong> inside a nuclear reactor are <strong>producing and losing<\/strong> a <strong>constant number ofneutrons<\/strong>, and the nuclear energy system is stable.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Nuclear power technicians have procedures in place, some of them automated, in case a situation arises in which more or fewer neutrons are produced and lost.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Controlling Criticality:<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>When a reactor is starting up, the number of neutrons is increased slowly in a controlled manner.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Neutron-absorbing control rods<\/strong> in the reactor core are <strong>used to calibrate neutron production.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The control rods are <strong>made from neutron-absorbing elements<\/strong> such as <strong>cadmium, boron, or hafnium.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>The <strong>deeper the rods are <\/strong>lowered into the reactor core, the <strong>more neutrons<\/strong> the <strong>rods absorb<\/strong> and the <strong>less fission occurs.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Technicians pull up or lower down the control rods into the reactor core depending on whether more or less fission, neutron production, and power are desired.<\/li>\n<li>Should a malfunction occur, technicians can remotely plunge control rods into the reactor core to quickly soak up neutrons and shut down the nuclear reaction.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What Is Supercriticality?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>At start-up<\/strong>, the <strong>nuclear reactor<\/strong> is <strong>briefly put into a state that produces more neutrons than are lost.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>This condition is called the <strong>supercritical state<\/strong>, <strong>which allows<\/strong> the neutron population to increase and <strong>more power to be produced<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>When the desired power production is reached<\/strong>, <strong>adjustments are made to place<\/strong> the <strong>reactor into the critical state<\/strong> that sustains neutron balance and power production<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1<\/strong>: What are neutrons?<\/h3>\n<p>Neutrons, along with protons, are subatomic particles found inside the nucleus of every atom. The only exception is hydrogen, where the nucleus contains only a single proton. Neutrons have a neutral electric charge (neither negative nor positive) and have slightly more mass than positively charged protons.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Source: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/economictimes.indiatimes.com\/industry\/energy\/power\/indias-third-home-built-700-mwe-nuclear-reactor-achieves-criticality\/articleshow\/113522142.cms?from=mdr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">India&#8217;s third home-built 700 MWe nuclear reactor achieves criticality<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Criticality means that a Nuclear reactor is controlling a sustained fission chain reaction, where each fission event releases a sufficient number of neutrons to maintain an ongoing series of reactions. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":26752,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-26751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}