Product Description

This book covers the basics behind thermal hydraulics. It explores the characteristics of power reactors, thermal design principles, and how reactors generate heat. The text also presents transport equations for single- and two-phase flows. The authors discuss the thermodynamics of nuclear energy conversion systems, including nuclear power plants and a simplified power system. They also consider the thermal analysis of fuel, single-phase fluid mechanics and heat transfer, and two-phase flow dynamics and heat transfer. The final chapter presents a steady-state analysis of a single heated channel. A solutions manual is available for qualifying instructors.

Customer Reviews (1)

Pretty much the base of everything you need to know
This book covers almost all aspects of thermal hydrolics in a nuclear reactor. It even has multiple correlations for flow through a core, and in general is totally dedicated to nuclear systems, unlike most heat transfer or fluid flow books. If you buy this book you would be smart to keep it over selling it back to the bookstore. ... Read more

Product Description
When asked to name the world's first major nuclear accident, most people cite the Three Mile Island incident or the Chernobyl disaster. Revealed in this book is one of American history's best-kept secrets: the world's first nuclear reactor accident to claim fatalities happened on United States soil. Chronicled here for the first time is the strange tale of SL-1, a military test reactor located in Idaho's Lost River Desert that exploded on the night of January 3, 1961, killing the three-man maintenance crew on duty. Through details uncovered in official documents, firsthand accounts from rescue workers and nuclear industry insiders, and exclusive interviews with the victims' families and friends, this book probes intriguing questions about the devastating blast that have remained unanswered for more than 40 years. From reports of a faulty reactor design and mismanagement of the reactor's facilities to rumors of incompetent personnel and a failed love affair that prompted deliberate sabotage of the plant, these plausible explanations for the explosion raise questions about whether the truth was deliberately suppressed to protect the nuclear energy industry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Sloppily done and biased.
My father, William Gammill, was the first health physicist on site.He was one of the ones to actually go into the reactor building in an effort to save the operators; an action for which he and four others received a Carnegie Heroes Medal.To portray them as McKeown did was insulting and false,anyone that called him "nerdy" or worse clearly didn't know anything about him.They performed with heroism that few of us will ever match.He and William Rausch were still alive during the period that the book was written yet was not even mentioned and neither were interviewed. Very sloppy indeed.

This reviewer is the son of William P. Gammill and remembers well the night that his dad went rushing out into the night not knowing whether he was going to be returning.I also discussed the book with him before his death in October of 2008.Shame on McKeown.

Idaho Falls
The author does a good job with the Accident victims autobiographies, psychology, injuries, and burial preparations.
However his account of the Accident victim's rescue is insulting of the Rescue Team and inaccurate.

The insults include "nerdy engineers"(p.99), "bourbon and water downing bosses"(p.95) and individuals who were"forced to conduct a rescue operation even though they were unprepared"(p.95). In fact they were some of the most courageous, intelligent, experienced, innovative and caring individuals I have ever known. The 4-man rescue team was composed of the following individuals:

Paul Duckworth, the SL-1 Operations Supervisor, who may have been a WWII South-Pacific Campaign ship commander at age 19 and owned the powerful Model 88 Oldsmobile used to race the Rescue Team to the Accident site.

Sidney Cohen, the SL-1 Test supervisor, a WWII, 2nd-wave Normandy Invasion infantryman at age 17 and a "Life Master" bridge player.

William Rausch, the 28-year old SL-1 Assistant Operations Supervisor who had been a Merchant Marine ship engineer with experience in recovery of a fatal shipboard boiler room explosion.

Ed Vallario, the 33-year old SL-1 Health Physicist who was the first team member to be notifed of the post-Accident lethal radioctive conditions and missing operators because he was the designated technical contact for concerns of the SL-1 plant operators and NRTS security and firemen that evening.

William Gammill, the 32-year old, on-duty, AEC Site Survey Chief and a certified Health Physicist who volunteered to assist the rescue team

In 1962 all five men received medals and national recognition for "heriosm in saving human life" from the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission.

The author doesn't even include either Mr. Rausch or Mr. Gammill as Rescue Team members and only provides a complimentary autobiography for Mr. Vallario. Mr. Rausch may have received the greatest radiation dose because his assignment was to confirm the immobile victim, who was closest to the destroyed reactor vessel, was deceased and the only Rescue Team member to see a "bundle of rags" hanging from the reactor room ceiling which was determined by the next reactor room entry group to be the 3rd victim. The author credits Mr. Vallario with making "the recommendation to the other rescue team members to go into the reactor room to find the men regardless of the potentially lethal radiation conditions"(p.100) which doesn't make sense because he was not the senior member of the rescue team and there was no time for a group conference.In addition the author didn't interview the only surviving Rescue Team member, Mr. Rausch.

The Rescue Team members unflinchingly took on an unprecedented and impossible task which they voluntarily executed skillfully without hesitation in about an amazing 60 minutes.The rescue may have been more appropriately accomplished by a full complement of on-duty NRTS firemen, security men, and health physicists or the off-site military officers.

Some of the rescue event accounts in the story are inaccurate but of minor consequence compared to the Rescue Team insults.

This reviewer is a retired (1995) nuclear fuel projects manager with AEC, ERDA & DOE prime contractors including a junior engineer position at the SL-1 plant at the time of the Accident.

Witty and shocking, this book is a must read
You wouldn't think a book about a nuclear excursion could be witty and snappy, yet scientific -- but this book is. It is also well-researched.

I tore through this book in a couple of nights -- I could not put it down. The author was able to mix science with dramatic, true-crime style writing which made the pages fly by.

I had never heard of this disaster, and I am surprised more people don't know about it. This book is worth the money, if only to educate yourself about how the government could run a reactor that is falling apart and is controlled by ONE control rod. Hellloooo??

At the end of the book, the choice is yours about what to believe happened -- I liked it that the author left it up to the reader. Good, old-fashioned solid writing with a little bit of "flash" (no pun intended).

America's first nuclear accident
Egon Lampbrect is a personal friend and he encouraged me to read the book.
Very interesting how the early nuclear industry was just flying by the seat of their pants into unknown teritory.
Being here in eastern Idaho, we all have relatives that have worked at the Site, and we for the most part support the nuclear industry.
My father back in the 60's bought a surplus International truck from the site which would have been there at the time. I still have as a suvenior, a pair of ViseGrips marked AEC.
I had an uncle that helped develop the chassis for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki while working at the Navel Ordance Plant in Pocatello.All done in top secret, he told his family many years after the fact.
The book is "a must read" for anyone interested in the early nuclear industry.

Fascinating telling of a little known piece of American History
"Idaho Falls: The Untold Story of America's First Nuclear Accident" by Willam McKeown is a fascinating story of Americas first nuclear reactor accident and the story surrounding it. McKeown tells weaves a story put together from official reports and first hand accounting of the events of January 3rd, 1961 in a manner that flows and is easy to read.

The part about the book that came as a shock to me was how much of the story involved events after the accident (rescue, clean-up, investigation) than the actual accident itself. The technology of the time and the immaturity of the equipment used to handle the accident was honestly frightening! At one point in the book, a commanding officer needs to assess how much water is left in the reactor and asks an officer on the rescue team to throw a rock into the exposed reactor core when entering the room during rescue efforts and listen for a splash! That's just the beginning of the almost dark comedy that was the combination of the technology and procedures at the time at Idaho Falls.

Make no mistake, if you are squeamish this might not be the best book. McKeown, tastefully, leaves no detail out when it comes to the effects of the accident on the soldiers that were involved. From their immediate condition following the explosion, their autopsy and preparation of the bodies to be returned to their families. Honestly, I have added respect for the military and the lengths they went through to return the bodies of those involved in the accident to their families. They could have just as easily declared them a biological danger and disposed of them with other nuclear waste.

I feel the book tapered off in the end and gave up it's flow of a factual based telling of an event and succumbed to "conspiracy theory" type hear-say. Granted, the information is not framed as fact and is presented in manner that although doesn't direct the reader that the information is true, it doesn't exactly say it's false either. It's left up to the reader and I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I suppose it's all part of the complete story so it belonged here as well.

In the end, "Idaho Falls: The Untold Story of America's First Nuclear Accident" is a great, quick read that had me hooked through the entire story.

Highly recommended! ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
An essential reference for journalists, activists, and students, this book presents scientifically accurate and accessible overviews of 24 of the most important issues in the nuclear realm, including: health effects, nuclear safety and engineering, TMI and Chernobyl, nuclear medicine, food irradiation, transport of nuclear materials, spent fuel, nuclear weapons, global warming.

Each "brief" is based on interviews with named scientists, engineers, or administrators in a nuclear specialty, and each has been reviewed by a team of independent experts.The objective is not to make a case for or against nuclear-related technologies, but rather to provide definitive background information.(The approach is based on that of The Reporter's Environmental Handbook, published in 1988, which won a special award for journalism from the Sigma Delta Chi Society of professional journalists.)

Other features of the book include: a glossary of hundreds of terms, an introduction to risk assessment, environmental and economic impacts, and public perceptions, an article by an experienced reporter with recommendations about how to cover nuclear issues, quick guides to the history of nuclear power in the United States, important federal legislation and regulations, nuclear position statements, and key organizations, print and electronic resources. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great for marketing professionals in the nuclear industry
As a young marketer working for a company peripherally involved in the nuclear industry, it was urgent for me to learn more about the current state of the world, market, and opinion set in the particular industry which I suddenly found myself working in. This book was enormously helpful for that purpose. ... Read more

Product Description
This new streamlined text offers a one-semester treatment of the essentials of how the fission nuclear reactor works, the various approaches to the design of reactors, and their safe and efficient operation. The book includes numerous worked-out examples and end-of-chapter questions to help reinforce the knowledge presented.

This textbook offers an engineering-oriented introduction to nuclear physics, with a particular focus on how those physics are put to work in the service of generating nuclear-based power, particularly the importance of neutron reactions and neutron behavior. Engineering students will find this applications-oriented approach, with many worked-out examples, more accessible and more meaningful as they aspire to become future nuclear engineers.

· A clear, general overview of atomic physics from the standpoint of reactor functionality and design, including the sequence of fission reactions and their energy release
· In-depth discussion of neutron reactions, including neutron kinetics and the neutron energy spectrum, as well as neutron spatial distribution
· Ample worked-out examples and over 100 end-of-chapter problems ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

not for teaching...
At first sight the book looks like a reordering of materials from other well known books, such as Lamarsh or even Glasstone. Reading the preface the author explicitely mention that he wants to do this, however his promise is to do so emphasizing on modern power reactors. OK, now, how can this be done without data ? the tables on the book are so few that they seems to play a minor role in nuclear engineering, which in reality is the opposite. Now how to proceed whithout sound and well worked examples ?, or the help of modern softwares ?. The author seems to rely on the capability of the students to use some modern tools like MATLAB, MATHCAD and so on (as he request them to use those in some of the end chapter problems), however their calculations must be contrasted with real values and not just to left on whatever they can get, the book should provide at least some clear simple cases (modern ones).

Also there is a quite strange ordering, like point kinetics before any Buckling ?, which comes latter on the book but it is touched very lightly, so he has to introduce a proportional parameter in the non leackage probability, and then PK is just an exercise of coupled ODE's.
On the contrary there is something interesting on the very same topic, he keeps the source term so it is quite easy to analyze the effect of any external source on the evolution of neutron population, and this is interesting.
Finally, where are the modern reactors ?, you may rush into the book to find the latest state of the art...but is not there either, maybe a final chapter is missing and could be the difference with conventional books.

It is a pity that the book can not help that much at this stage, maybe on a revisited version, because so far it is advisable to use it a secondary source of knowledge in the field.

Course Textbook
Good: Focuses on nuclear reactors, not laden with unimportant material

Bad: Small book for particular topic, very few data tables

Not very helpful
I found this book to be a hindrance to my classwork. Not having example problems for this type of material should be reason enough to seek another book besides this one. It is unclear in how some terms are used in formulas, and the index is absolutely useless (doesn't have buckling, for instance). The book focuses mainly on deriving formulas, and many of the problems are re-deriving the formula for different conditions. It is not easy to find information in this book either: no bold titles to formulas, no pages of commonly used formulas, etc. Surely there is a better book than this. ... Read more

Product Description
By the end of the Cold War, 45 years of weapons production and nuclear research had generated a sobering legacy: an astounding 1.7 trillion gallons of contaminated groundwater; 40 million cubic meters of tainted soil and debris; over 2,000 tons of intensely radioactive spent nuclear fuel; more than 160,000 cubic meters of radioactive and hazardous waste; and over 100 million gallons of liquid, high-level radioactive waste.

After more than a decade of assessment, the Environmental Management Program estimated that it would need as much as $212 billion and 70 years to clean up the nuclear waste and contamination at 113 sites across the United States. By 2006, the Department of Energy had expended about $90 billion and greatly reduced risks from catastrophic accidents to both the public and its workers. Management of critical nuclear materials had become more efficient, secure, and accountable. Cleanup was complete at three relatively large and complex weapons productions sites, as well as many smaller ones.

Yet many problems remain. Long-lived radioactive isotopes discharged into the soil will persist in slow migration, contaminating nearby groundwater. And while their potential for disastrous explosions has been virtually eliminated, storage tanks containing high-level waste will continue to deteriorate, posing further environmental risks. The long-term nuclear repositories will require unremitting management to protect future generations, and additional facilities need to be developed.

America's Nuclear Wastelands presents an expert, yet straightforward overview of this complex topic, including nuclear weapons history and contamination issues. The author, a government consultant with a long career in Pacific Northwest nuclear waste issues, also explores the current institutional and political environment, demonstrating the critical role of public participation for past and future generations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A 'must' for any social issues collection
Cold-War era nuclear operations and weapons production produced the legacy of over 2,000 tons of radioactive spent nuclear fuel, over 100 million gallons of radioactive liquids, and 1.7 trillion gallons of contaminated groundwater. In recent years the department of Energy has expanded cleanup activities, but the migration of radioactive compounds in water and soil persists. America's Nuclear Wasteland charts the issues stemming from contamination, examining the political, social and environmental impact alike. A 'must' for any social issues collection.
... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Helen Caldicott, Mark Diesendorf, Brian Martin, Ian Lowe, Jim Falk, Stuart White. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 28. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Helen Caldicott (born 1938) is an Australian physician, author, and anti-nuclear advocate who has founded several associations dedicated to opposing the use of depleted uranium munitions, nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons proliferation, war and military action in general. She hosts a weekly radio program, If You Love This Planet. Born in Melbourne, Australia, Caldicott attended the Fintona Girls' School, and received her medical degree in 1961 from the University of Adelaide Medical School. In 1977 she joined the staff of the Children's Hospital Medical Center in Boston, and taught pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School from 1977 to 1978. In 1980, following the Three Mile Island nuclear accident, she left her medical career in order to concentrate on calling the world's attention to what she refers to as the "insanity" of the nuclear arms race and the growing reliance on nuclear power. In 1982, she was the subject of the controversial Oscar-winning National Film Board of Canada documentary on the dangers of nuclear weapons, entitled If You Love This Planet. Citing confidential memos, Caldicott says that the Hershey Foods Corporation was concerned about radiation levels in milk used in their products because of the proximity of the Three Mile Island accident to Hershey's Pennsylvania factory. According to Caldicott, citing a March 30, 1979 study by the Pennsylvania State University, College of Engineering, radiation contaminants that fell on the Pennsylvania grass found its way into the milk of the local dairy cows. Caldicott noted this was contrary to the findings in the government official report released shortly after t...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=861462 ... Read more

Product Description
Nuclear energy is in a state of crisis in the United States. No new nuclear reactors have been ordered since 1978. The reason for this moratorium is that the safe operation of nuclear energy plants has been in doubt since the Three Mile Island crisis. The result of a study conducted by the Institute for Energy Analysis, this book examines the possibility of designing reactors that are completely safe--so safe that any rational arguments against the safety of nuclear power would no longer be valid. ... Read more

Product Description
Nuclear power provides approximately twenty percent of the electricity used in the United States. The construction of a nuclear power plant is a highly regulated, complicated, yet interesting process spanning many years from start to finish. (20020401) ... Read more

Product Description
The development of protective measures to guard against the spread of radioactive debris following reactor disasters has been given extensive and careful engineering attention over the past several years. Much of this attention has been devoted to eliminating or minimizing the effects of malfunctions of internal components. But reactors can also suffer externally caused disasters—for example, their radioactive cores can be damaged by earthquakes or by missiles generated by tornadoes. Earthquakes in particular will continue to render man vulnerable even to the "peaceful atom" as the number of nuclear power plants increases and as they come to be located in those parts of the world that have a history of seismic activity.

It was to consider such problems that the seminar reported here was held. The conferees, who are leaders in this special and important field, gathered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in spring 1969, to present the papers whose titles are listed below. Together they cover both the theoretical underpinnings of the subject and specific applications to nuclear reactors; they provide both useful summaries of what is known to date and some new thinking on the subject, not before published.

Contents: Preface—T. J. Thompson. Foreword—R. J. Hansen. Introduction—R. V. Whitman. Geological and Seismological Factors Influencing the Assessment of a Seismic Threat to Nuclear Reactors—Daniel Linehan, S. J. Geophysics—Keiiti Aki. Design Seismic Inputs—C. Allin Cornell. Some Observations on Probabilistic Methods in the Seismic Design of Nuclear Power Plants—C. Allin Cornell. Seismic Risk and Seismic Design Decisions—Luis Esteva. Fundamentals of Soil Amplification—J. M. Roesset. Soil Structure Interaction—R. V. Whitman. Evaluation of Soil Properties for Site Evaluation and Dynamic Analysis of Nuclear Plants—R. V. Whitman. Structural Response to Seismic Input—J. M. Biggs. Seismic Analysis of Equipment Mounted on a Massive Structure—J. M. Biggs and J. M. Roesset. Modal Response of Containment Structures—Peter Jan Pahl. Provision of Required Seismic Resistance—M. J. Holley, Jr. A Measure of Earthquake Intensity—Arturo Arias. Closure—R. J. Hansen. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent Book!
Very well written, explains in great depth the real issues and problems with nuclear energy. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

Product Description
Traces the work of many scientists over more than one hundred years in developing man's knowledge of nuclear power. ... Read more

Product Description
This edition builds on earlier traditions in providing broad subject-area coverage, application of theory to practical aspects of commercial nuclear power, and use of instructional objectives.Like the first edition, it focuses on what distinguishes nuclear engineering from the other engineering disciplines.However, this edition includes reorganization and overall update of descriptions of reactor designs and fuel-cycle steps, and more emphasis on reactor safety, especially related to technical and management lessons learned from the TMI-2 and Chernobyl - 4 accidents. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great Overview Book for PE and Defense Exam Preparation
This book is a comprehensive overview of nuclear engineering topics.It is that ONE book if you must rely on just one.It is similar to the Glasstone book but newer and with better text.The explanations in the Reactor Physics and Kinetics chapters are great and easy to understand.I wish I'd had this book as an undergraduate; that Reactor Analysis course would have been much more understandable! ... Read more

Product Description
Who has the most nuclear assets in the Middle East? Whose power is waning, whose increasing?

Economic, demographic and military indicators establish the pecking order for 232 countries analyzed in this yearbook, with estimates of all nuclear arsenals including rarely published data on non-signatory nations.

The foundations of power politics in the nuclear age, fundamental forces that drive events in the international news, and seldom-discussed factors that can shift whole economies or trigger wars, may be discerned from the statistical tables presented in this novel yearbook.

This statistical annual presents fundamental data in three sections: (1) Quality of Life, (2) Balance of Power, and (3) Developed Market Economies since 1960.

It contains data that is generally not available elsewhere. Sections 1 and 2 give statistics for 232 countries. The World Bank and Encyclopedia Britannica provide statistical data for a maximum of about 160 countries. The actual number of countries in World Bank statistical tables is even smaller. The CIA World Factbook gives data for about 230 countries but that data is limited in scope and is imprecise. Other statistical publications are even less satisfactory. The author has managed to increase the number of countries tallied by writing proprietary software utilizing statistical regressions, selecting data which, first of all, is important and, second, which allows for high correlation coefficients for these regressions.
Section 2 includes data about nuclear delivery systems and the number of nuclear warheads of all nuclear powers. This is based on information from reputable sources. Among others, it includes estimates of the Israeli nuclear arsenal which usually do not appear in the press.
Official estimates of Russian military expenditures distributed by US and British intelligence communities are methodologically flawed. Such estimates claim to give a picture of military expenditures of the countries of the world at market exchange rates; at the same time, they apparently cite Russian military expense figures at purchasing power parities, thus inflating these numbers in comparison to those of other countries. Such deceptive practices of the Anglo-American intelligence services are counter-balanced by presenting two different tables, showing military expenditures estimates both at market exchange rates and by purchasing power parities.
Section 3 gives data on the topic of health care. It seems that public health expenditures as a share of total health expenditures has a stronger correlation with the comparative level (and the rates of improvement) of the main health care indicators than the absolute level (measured as a percent of GDP) of total health expenditures. The data demonstrates that the US has the lowest public health expenditure of developed market economies and is increasingly lagging behind other countries by main health care indicators.

The proposed introduction of national health insurance in the US will presumably mean some increase in taxes. The author therefore also seeks to shed light on modern ideological debates about the share of taxation in GDP and its influence on rates of growth. Surprisingly enough, the empirical data for the developed market economies do not seem to support the popular idea that low taxes are strongly correlated with higher rates of growth; depending on how the data are analyzed, the appropriate correlations are either low or even the reverse of what is commonly believed.
This volume is streamlined and updated for 2010. ... Read more