https://doi.org/10.1051/epjn/2020012
Regular Article
Newton’s second law analogy for the traveling wave of nuclear burning
1
M. Smoluchowski Institute of Physics, Jagiellonian University,
30348
Krakow,
Poland
2
Odessa National Polytechnic University,
Shevchenko av. 1,
Odessa
65000,
Ukraine
* e-mail: vitaliyurbanevich@gmail.com
Received:
16
September
2019
Received in final form:
25
May
2020
Accepted:
28
May
2020
Published online: 1 July 2020
We consider a model of neutron-nuclear wave burning. The traveling wave of nuclear burning of the medium is initiated by an external neutron source and is the basis for the new generation reactors the so-called “traveling-wave reactors”. We develop a model of nuclear traveling wave burning, for which it is possible to draw a Newton’s second law analogy with a mechanical dissipative system. On the basis of this analogy, we find that the wave velocity has a continuous spectrum bounded below. Within the framework of the new model, we show the autowave to be possible for certain neutron energies only. Also we find that two burning modes are possible depending on the control parameters: a traveling autowave and a wave driven by an external neutron source.
© V. Urbanevych et al., published by EDP Sciences, 2020
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
