Nuclear Fission - ICT-Wiki

7/17/16
Nuclear Fission - ICT-Wiki
Nuclear Fission
From ICT-Wiki
Experiments with neutron capture were being carried out by Fermi and others for many years with the sole aim of
producing new and heavier elements. However, the phenomenon of nuclear fission was first observed by Hahn and
Strassmann in 1939, when they discovered the presence of light and medium mass elements like barium in neutron
capture reactions with heavy nuclei like uranium. It was further observed that the energy released in such n-capture
reactions was also very large ( > 100MeV). An explanation was provided by Meitner and Frisch in 1939, who
proposed that the uranium nuclei become highly unstable after neutron capture and split into two parts, calling the
phenomenon as fission in analogy to cell division in biological systems.
Why nuclei fission? This question is easily answered by considering the B.E. / Avs. A graph, as shown below. We
note that the B.E. / A first rises rapidly, reaches a maximum around 56Fe and becomes nearly constant in a small
region. It,
however, begins to show a slow fall in its values. The typical B.E. / A for a heavy nucleus like U is of the order of
7.6MeV per nucleon. In an ideal situation, the U nucleus may break into two equal fission fragments in the mass
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region A ~ 120. The B.E. / A in the fragments mass region is of the order of 8.5MeV. In other words, we are going
from a less tightly bound system to a more tightly bound system. This has a similar effect as we go from say two free
nucleons to a deuteron releasing the binding energy of the deuteron. In the case of fission the energy released will be
. This energy comes out in the primarily in the form of kinetic
energy of the fission fragments (~80%) and also as the K.E. of the emitted neutrons, beta and gamma rays. In the
chapter on the semi-empirical mass formula, we noted that the fall in the B.E. / A in the heavy nuclei is largely due to
the Coulomb term.
Since fission of heavy nuclei like uranium is an exothermic process, one would think that spontaneous fission should
be a highly probable phenomenon. However, in spite of the fact that the energy released is very large, the fission
does not occur so easily. As an example, the alpha decay of 238U occurs with an half-life of
years
whereas the spontaneous fission takes almost 1016 years. Remembering that the decay probability is inverse of the
lifetime, the probability of fission is very small as compared to the alpha decay.
Contents
1 Spontaneous and Induced Fission
2 Characteristics of Fission
3 Distribution of fission energy
4 Neutron emission in fission
5 Neutron fission cross-sections
6 Chain Reaction
Spontaneous and Induced Fission

As pointed out above, fission being an exothermic process for heavy nuclei, it should occur spontaneously and
rapidly. It does occur spontaneously but not quickly until one goes up in the mass to about 250 where the
spontaneous fission becomes very fast. To understand this, we plot in the figure below, the potential energy for the
fission phenomenon. This graph is based on the LDM where the nucleus is treated as a charged drop of liquid. In
order to fission, the liquid drop has undergo a shape change. As a result, it elongates, develops a neck in the middle,
and finally separates in to two parts. While it does so, primarily two energy terms change the surface energy and
the coulomb energy. While the surface tension like forces try to keep the nucleus bound in one sphere, the coulomb
term tries to break the fragments apart. The competition between the two decided if a nucleus will be able to fission
or not. This results in a potential barrier, also known as the fission barrier, as shown in the figure below.
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Taking the zero of energy to coincide with the ground state of the nucleus, we find that the potential energy of the
nucleus exhibits a barrier whose height for a uranium like nucleus is about 5 7MeV . A nucleus undergoing fission
must pass through this barrier. The penetration probability of the barrier now mainly depends on the barrier. A
typical fission barrier height for the nuclei around uranium is 5 to7MeV. Therefore, the barrier penetration is very less
probable. As we go to the higher masses, the barrier height goes on decreasing. Eventually it almost disappears for
A ~ 250. The nuclei cannot exist anymore. They fission as soon as they are formed. However, this picture gets
modified by the shell effects which we have not discussed here.
To be more quantitative, the potential energy of a uniformly charged drop having deformation parameter may be
written as the sum of a Coulomb term and a surface term,
E() = Ec() + Es ()
For the spherical shape, = 0 , and the potential energy is given by
where R0 is the radius of the spherical drop.

We now introduce deformation in terms of a coefficients of the spherical harmonics. The radius vector of a general
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nuclear shape can be written as
For all small defoemation, the a are also small and
The deformation energy is, therefore, the difference of the two,

.
We now define the parameters and X as
where X is called the fissility parameter and is given by,
Here,
is the critical value for spontaneous fission. If, X > 1 spontaneous fission
occurs (the system is unstable), and if X < 1 , the system is metastable. However, many factors have not been taken
into account here. For example, the nuclei around uranium are not spherical in shape in their ground states; rather,
they are deformed.
The energy released in a symmetric fission can be obtained from the Semi-empirical mass formula as
Q = E(Z,A) 2E(Z / 2,A / 2)
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In practice however symmetric fission is very uncommon, and the energy released in asymmetric fission is smaller
than symmetric fission. As pointed out, the shell effects play an important role in modifying these results.
Induced fission
Induced fission occurs when we provide enough energy to the nucleus so that it can overcome the fission barrier.
This is commonly achieved by tapping the nucleus by an energetic projectile like a light charged particle or a neutron.
Most commonly used is the neutron, which being neutral, does not see the Coulomb barrier and goes straight into the
nucleus. A thermal neutron is most commonly used to induce the fission of 235U. Let the energy of the thermal
neutron be almost zero. As the neutron combine with the uranium nucleus, it forms a compound nucleus 236U having
an excitation energy equal to the binding energy of the neutron in 236U, which is 6.46MeV. This energy is more than
the fission barrier height and the compound nucleus undergoes fission. The advantage of using a thermal neutron is
that the reaction cross-section of slow neutrons is much larger as compared to that of the fast neutrons.
However, the 238U nucleus cannot fission by a thermal neutron. It rather requires a fast neutron having about 1 MeV
energy. This is intimately linked to the pairing energy of the neutron in the compound nucleus. Since 238U is an eveneven nucleus, the resultant compound nucleus is an odd-A nucleus (239U) and the additional binding due to pairing of
neutron is not released. In the case of 235U, which is an odd-A, odd-N nucleus, the compound nucleus is an eveneven nucleus and the external neutron when absorbed pairs with the odd-neutron of 235U. This releases an extra
binding energy coming from the pairing term and the nucleus can fission by a thermal neutron. Those nuclei that can
fission by thermal neutrons are called fissile and the others which require a fast neutron are called non-fissile but
fissionable. Some examples are:
Fissile Nuclei- 235U , 239Pu , 233U , 241Pu
Fissionable but non-fissile nuclei- 232Th , 238U ,
Characteristics of Fission
We now discuss some general characteristics of fission which have been measured over the years. A typical graph of
the fission fragment mass distribution is plotted in the figure below. Note that the yield plotted on the vertical scale is
relative yield and the scale is logarithmic in nature. Because of this, the asymmetry is actually much more than what
appears on the graph.
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A nucleus when fissions, breaks up into almost 200 different ways. Some examples are:
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Distribution of fission energy

The 200 MeV of energy released in fission is distributed among various components as follows:
Kinetic energy of fragments ~ 161 to 168 MeV
Kinetic energy of beta particles ~ 6 to 8 MeV
Energy of gamma rays ~ 11 to 19 MeV
Kinetic energy of neutrons ~ 5 MeV
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Kinetic energy of neutrinos ~ 10 to 12 MeV

Total ~ 200 MeV
Neutron emission in fission

The fission fragments formed in a fission reaction are highly neutron rich. The fission fragments, therefore, release the
extra neutrons almost instantaneously i.e. within 10 16 sec of the fission. These are known as the prompt neutrons.
The exact number of neutrons emitted may vary from event to event but the average number, denoted by , is
characteristic of a fission process. For thermal neutron fission of nuclei around uranium, the number is about 2.5.
In addition to the prompt neutrons, there are also some delayed neutrons emitted following the beta decay of one of
the neutron rich fission fragments. The decay times of delayed neutrons are typically in seconds. However, these
delayed neutrons play a very important role in the control of fission chain reaction in reactors.
Neutron fission cross-sections

The figure below exhibits the cross-section behavior of neutron induced fission of 235U and 238U. The fission crosssection of 235U can be divided into three parts. The low energy region (below 0.1 eV) shows the 1 / v behavior,
where v is the speed of the neutrons. As the neutron slows down, the cross-section rises rapidly. This is a quantum
effect. Slower the neutron, larger is its de-Broglie wave-length and hence larger the size of neutron. Such a neutron
sweeps larger and larger cross-sectional area as it slows down and hence the probability of its
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capture and subsequent fission increases. The region of 1 100eV is dominated by resonances. The following region
displays a monotonically decreasing cross-section. On the other hand, no fission occurs in 238U until about 1MeV
neutrons are bombarded.
Chain Reaction
Since each fission event leads to a release of 2 to 3 neutrons, a possibility of chain reaction arises. In a chain
reaction, once the fission in initiated, it can sustain itself by the subsequently emitted neutrons. One defines a factor k
as,
k = multiplication factor = Number of fission events
in one generation / Number of fission even
Or,
k = Number of neutrons causing fission in one generation / Number of neutrons causing fission preceeding
The chain reaction is said to become critical when k = 1, subcritical when k < 1 and supercritical when k > 1.
Let l be the mean time for a neutron in a chain reaction before it is absorbed and produces more neutrons in a fission
event. The rate of change of neutron flux can be written as:
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The typical distance a thermal neutron travels in a uranium sample is about 7 cm in a time of
before
inducing the next fission event and producing more neutrons. Even for a k value slightly greater than one, the rate of
growth of neutrons is exponentially fast.
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This page was last modified on 10 August 2012, at 07:20.
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