fission

Examples of fission in the following topics:

• Nuclear Fission in Reactors

  • Nuclear reactors convert the thermal energy released from nuclear fission into electricity.
  • Nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller (lighter) nuclei.
  • The kinetic energy of fission products is converted to thermal energy when these nuclei collide with nearby atoms.
  • The power output of the reactor is adjusted by controlling how many neutrons are able to create more fissions.
  • An induced nuclear fission event.

• Conservation of Nucleon Number and Other Laws

  • Through radioactive decay, nuclear fusion and nuclear fission, the number of nucleons (sum of protons and neutrons) is always held constant.
  • Chain reactions of nuclear fission release a tremendous amount of energy, but follow the Law of Conservation of Nucleon Number.
  • This is the same with all fission reactions.
  • Thus, the number of nucleons before and after fission and fusion is always constant.
  • If U-235 is bombarded with a neutron (light blue small circe), the resulting U-236 produced is unstable and undergoes fission.

• Nuclear Weapons

  • A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions—either fission, fusion, or a combination.
  • A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion.
  • The first fission (i.e., "atomic") bomb test released the same amount of energy as approximately 20,000 tons of trinitrotoluene (TNT).
  • On August 6, 1945, a uranium gun-type fission bomb code-named "Little Boy" was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
  • Only three days later a plutonium implosion-type fission bomb code-named "Fat Man" (as illustrated in ) was exploded over Nagasaki, Japan.

• Nuclear Fusion

• Alpha Decay

  • Alpha decay is by far the most common form of cluster decay, in which the parent atom ejects a defined daughter collection of nucleons, leaving another defined product behind (in nuclear fission, a number of different pairs of daughters of approximately equal size are formed).
  • In theory it can occur only in nuclei somewhat heavier than nickel (element 28), in which overall binding energy per nucleon is no longer a minimum and the nuclides are therefore unstable toward spontaneous fission-type processes.

• Other Forms of Energy

  • Nuclear Energy: This type of energy is liberated during the nuclear reactions of fusion and fission.

• Gamma Decay

  • Gamma decay from excited states may also follow nuclear reactions such as neutron capture, nuclear fission, or nuclear fusion.

• Gamma Rays

  • Notable artificial sources of gamma rays include fission such as occurs in nuclear reactors, and high energy physics experiments, such as neutral pion decay and nuclear fusion.