Monte Carlo Binary Collision Approximation

From New IAC Wiki
Revision as of 03:37, 26 February 2019 by Vanwdani (talk | contribs)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

When uranium-235 undergoes fission, the average of the fragment mass is about 118, but it is more probable that the pair will have an unequal distribution in mass. A common pair of fragments from uranium-235 fission is xenon and strontium as shown in the reaction:


[math]^{235}U+n\rightarrow ^{236}U^{*} \rightarrow ^{140}Xe+^{94}Sr+2n[/math]


Figure 1: Typical Uranium 235 fission fragments Xenon and Strontium.


Nuclear fission of uranium-235 yields an enormous amount of energy from the fact that the fission products have less total mass than the uranium nucleus, a mass change that is converted to energy by the Einstein relationship [math]E=mc^2[/math]. Using the Law of Conservation of Energy, we can look at the total energy before and after the fission to determine how much energy is released in this process.

[math]^{235}_{92}U : 92(938.272\ MeV)+143(939.565\ MeV)\ =\ \ GeV[/math]
[math]^{140}_{54}Xe : 54(938.272\ MeV)+86(939.565\ MeV)\ =\ \ GeV[/math]
[math]^{94}_{38}Sr : 38(938.272\ MeV)+56(939.565\ MeV)\ =\ \ GeV[/math]
[math]2*n : 2(939.565\ MeV)\ =\ 1.879\ GeV\lt /center\gt \lt center\gt \lt math\gt -----------------------------[/math]
<math> Energy released=