Nuclear Reactor Analysis

by James J. Duderstadt, Louis J. Hamilton

A classic textbook for an introductory course in nuclear reactor analysis that introduces the nuclear engineering student to the basic scientific principles of nuclear fission chain reactions and lays a foundation for the subsequent application of these principles to the nuclear design and analysis of reactor cores.  This text introduces the student to the fundamental principles governing nuclear fission chain reactions in a manner that renders the transition to practical nuclear reactor design methods most natural.  The authors stress throughout the very close interplay between the nuclear analysis of a reactor core and those nonnuclear aspects of core analysis, such as thermalhydrolics or materials studies, which play a major role in determining a reactor design.

Genres: Science

672 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

Reviews

[Gavin Ridley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome as an introduction, turn to Hebert’s “Applied Reactor Physics” if you’d like to continue from this book.

[Nick Black · Rating 5 out of 5]

2009-08-18, GT bookstore. This is, by far, the best nuclear engineering textbook I've ever seen or read. It's not for the faint of heart with regards to differential equations, power series, tossing integrals like salads and stochastic theory, but then again neither is the design of a nuclear reactor. And the physics! Even though Duderstadt makes a pretense of "this is not a nuclear physics textbook", he seems to understand the overall crappiness and incompleteness of current offerings (Kenneth Krane's Introductory Nuclear Physics is coming down a star after this read -- my hat's off to you after all, forgotten goodreads friend (Dr. M?) whose negative review of Krane led to our initial pairing), and has more good radiation/neutron physics mixed in here than I've collected from several classes. The treatments of multigroup diffusion theory and neutron transport are, so far as I know, best of breed. Duderstadt introduces all kinds of Feynman-like calculating tricks, clearly the output of many decades' experience doing real-world reactor calculations (the "infinite cylinder" fantasy reactor geometries of nuclear physics textbooks are quickly dispensed with, the hallmark of an excellent engineering text). Everything Duderstadt touches, he handles elegantly, and he touches far more than I've seen anyone else reach for.

Having studied this over the past two weeks, I feel my knowledge of nuclear physics to have at least doubled, and my nuclear engineering to have progressed from naive to workable-in-a-pinch. I'm not yet capable of designing a fast-neutron breeder, or even a very elegant PWR, but if someone put a straining zirconium-cladded fuel rod to my head and gave me some foolscap, a slide rule, and some fission poisons, I could figure out whether a McGuyver-like escape was possible or, barring that, how long I had to live.

[Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't quite completed reading this book; it is quite old, and covers some basic principles in fission reactor design. I am sure the field has evolved somewhat, though the field has been somewhat unexplored in the USA, after Three Mile Island. However, it does seem by some measure, current technology in this area is far safer.

[Thomas Eiden · Rating 5 out of 5]

The blue bible of nuclear engineering.

[Barlian gumay · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing book

[Mutaz Marji · Rating 5 out of 5]

من افضل الكتب المختصة في مجال الهندسة النووية من الناحيتين النظرية والتطبيقية.
صديق للطالب في دراسته وللمهندس في عمله.