With the ever-increasing demands of the nuclear power community to extend fuel cycles and overall core-lifetimes in a safe and economic manner, it is becoming more necessary to extend the working knowledge of nuclear fuel performance. From the atomistic to the macroscopic level, great morphological changes occur within the fuel over its lifetime. The main initial damaging events produced by fuel recoils from fast neutrons and fission fragment spiking leads to the onset of grain growths and fuel restructuring. Therefore, it is desirable to have a more detailed understanding of the initial events leading to fuel morphology changes at the atomistic level. However, this is difficult to achieve with the fission fragments due to the wide variability of their species (charge, mass, and energy) and the large averaging of their relative yields in the nuclear data files. This work is our first iteration at developing a general methodology to characterize a procedure, based on Monte Carlo principles, for generating individual fission event result channels and analyzing their specific response in the fuel. We utilized the nuclear reaction simulation tool, TALYS, to generate energy-dependent fission fragment yield distributions for different fissile/fissionable isotopes. These distributions can then be used in conjunction with fuel isotopics and a neutron energy spectrum to generate a fission-reaction-rate-averaged distribution of the fission fragment yields. We then used Monte Carlo sampling to generate the result channels from individual fission events, using the Q-value of the prompt fission system to either accept or reject. The simulation tool: Transport of Ions in Matter (TRIM) was used to characterize the general response of the fission fragment species within Uranium Dioxide (UO2), including the range, energy loss, displacements, recoils, etc. These responses were then correlated which allowed for the quick calculation of the response of the individual fission fragment species generated from the Monte Carlo sampling. As an example of this strategy, we calculated the response on a PWR fuel pin where MCNP was used to generate a high-fidelity neutron energy spectrum.

A fusion-fission (hybrid) reactor is a combination of a fusion device and a subcritical fission reactor, where the fusion device acts as a neutron source and the power is mainly produced in the fission core. Hybrid reactors may be suitable for transmutation of transuranic isotopes in the spent nuclear fuel, due to the safety margin on criticality imposed by the subcritical fission core. The SFLM Hybrid project is a theoretical project that aims to point out the possibilities with steady-state mirror-based hybrid reactors. The quadrupolar magnetic mirror vacuum field is based on the Straight Field Line Mirror field and the central cell is 25 m long. A fission mantle surrounds the mirror cell. The fission to fusion power ratio is about 150 with keff = 0.97, implying that almost all the produced energy comes from fission. Beyond each mirror end magnetic expanders are located, which increase the plasma receiving “divertor” area and provide tolerable heat load on wall materials. The plasma is heated with ion cyclotron radio frequency heating and the fission mantle is cooled using a liquid lead-bismuth eutectic. The device is self-sufficient in tritium, and does not seem to suffer from severe material problems. A remaining issue may be the plasma electron temperature, which need to reach about 500 eV for efficient power production.  In this doctoral thesis, theoretical work has been done with the magnetic coil system of such a device and also with the overall concept. A new coil type, the fishbone coil, suitable for single cell quadrupolar mirrors, has been invented. Two vacuum field coil sets with satisfying properties have been found, where the most recent coil set consists of fishbone coils. Finite ß effects on the magnetic field have been investigated, showing that the flux tube ellipticity increases with ß. The ellipticity of the vacuum field increases slightly with radius, but with finite ß it decreases with radius. The maximum flux surface radial extensions decrease with ß, which is an unexpected and beneficial result. A radial invariant has also been identified, and particle simulations have been made to emphasize that quadrupolar mirrors must be symmetric or confinement may be lost.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Texas at El Paso, 2009. / Title from title screen. Vita. CD-ROM. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (M.S. in Physics)--Naval Postgraduate School, May 1966. / Thesis Advisor(s): Riggin, John D. "May 1966." Description based on title screen as viewed on June 2, 2010. DTIC Descriptor(s): Reactor Cores, Gases, Fission Products, Gases, Gamma Ray Spectra, Radioactive Isotopes, Krypton, Xenon. DTIC Identifier(s): AGN-201 Reactors. Author(s) subject terms: Reactor Gas, Xenon Gamma Spectrum, Krypton Gamma Spectrum. Includes bibliographical references (p. 36). Also available in print.

Thesis--University of California, Berkeley, 1961. / "UC-4 Physics" -t.p. "TID-4500 (16th Ed.)" -t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-91).

Thesis (M.S. in Physics)--United States Naval Postgraduate School, California. / "Unclassified Physics." Includes bibliographical references (p. 36). 14

Thesis (Master's)--University of California, Berkeley. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 33-35). 54

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