Originally published in 1983, this book presents both the technical and political information necessary to evaluate the emerging threat to world security posed by recent advances in uranium enrichment technology. Uranium enrichment has played a relatively quiet but important role in the history of efforts by a number of nations to acquire nuclear weapons and by a number of others to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For many years the uranium enrichment industry was dominated by a single method, gaseous diffusion, which was technically complex, extremely capital-intensive, and highly inefficient in its use of energy. As long as this remained true, only the richest and most technically advanced nations could afford to pursue the enrichment route to weapon acquisition. But during the 1970s this situation changed dramatically. Several new and far more accessible enrichment techniques were developed, stimulated largely by the anticipation of a rapidly growing demand for enrichment services by the world-wide nuclear power industry. This proliferation of new techniques, coupled with the subsequent contraction of the commercial market for enriched uranium, has created a situation in which uranium enrichment technology might well become the most important contributor to further nuclear weapon proliferation. Some of the issues addressed in this book are: A technical analysis of the most important enrichment techniques in a form that is relevant to analysis of proliferation risks; A detailed projection of the world demand for uranium enrichment services; A summary and critique of present institutional non-proliferation arrangements in the world enrichment industry, and An identification of the states most likely to pursue the enrichment route to acquisition of nuclear weapons.

This is an authoritative compilation of information regarding methods and data used in all phases of nuclear engineering. Addressing nuclear engineers and scientists at all levels, this book provides a condensed reference on nuclear engineering since 1958.

Neutron Cross Sections, Volume 2: Neutron Cross Section Curves presents data for total reaction cross sections and related fission parameters as a function of incident-neutron energy. This book covers energy range from 0.01 eV to 200 MeV to exclude crystalline and magnetic effects for slow neutrons and relativistic effects for high energy neutrons. The data in this volume are grouped into sections corresponding to the element of the target nucleus in the neutron-induced reaction. These sections are ordered in increasing atomic number. Within a section, graphical data are presented for the natural element followed by the isotopes of that element in order of increasing atomic mass. A list of the reaction types is provided at the end of each section. This book also provides graphical section, wherein each graphical page is annotated on the outer edge with a symbol for an element or isotope followed by the list of the cross section data for that element or isotope. The data plotted in the graphical section are tagged by a mnemonic consisting of year, laboratory, and author's last name. This tag can be used to find the corresponding reference on the bibliographic pages.

This unique volume gives an accurate and very detailed description of the functioning and operation of basic nuclear reactors, as emerging from yet unpublished papers by Nobel Laureate Enrico Fermi. In the first part, the entire course of lectures on Neutron Physics delivered by Fermi at Los Alamos is reported, according to the version made by Anthony P French. Here, the fundamental physical phenomena are described very clearly and comprehensively, giving the appropriate physics grounds for the functioning of nuclear piles. In the second part, all the patents issued by Fermi (and coworkers) on the functioning, construction and operation of several different kinds of nuclear reactors are reported. Here, the main engineering problems are encountered and solved by employing simple and practical methods, which are described in detail. This seminal work mainly caters to students, teachers and researchers working in nuclear physics and engineering, but it is of invaluable interest to historians of physics too, since the material presented here is entirely novel.