--%>
Assignment Help - homework help

Why is heavy water employed as a moderator

Describe why is heavy water employed as a moderator? Illustrate.

E

Expert

Verified

Heavy water is highly enriched in the hydrogen isotope deuterium. We can evaluate the neutron interactions with billiard ball collision, where the neutron collides with nucleus of other atoms and lose energy. When the colliding nucleus size is small such as hydrogen nucleus it will lose the maximum energy. When nucleus is heavy, then the neutron hits the nucleus just alters its direction however not that much change in the energy of neutron. Therefore we use heavy water as moderator to slow down the neutrons.

   Related Questions in Physics

  • Q : Radar gun problem Whenever a radar gun

    Whenever a radar gun states the pitch is 90 miles per hour at what point in the balls travel to home plate is the radar gun evaluating the velocity?

    		•
  • Q : Explain Faradays law Faraday's law (M.

    Faraday's law (M. Faraday): The line integral of the electric field about a closed curve is proportional to the instant time rate of change of the magnetic flux via a surface bounded by that closed curve; in the differential form,

    		•
  • Q : State Kohlrauschs law Kohlrausch's law

    Kohlrausch's law (F. Kohlrausch): When a salt is dissolved in water, the conductivity of the solution is the addition of two values -- one depending on the positive ions and the other on negative ions.

    		•
  • Q : Define Second or SI unit of time

    Second: s: The basic SI unit of time, stated as the period of time equivalent to the duration of 9 192 631 770 periods of the radiation analogous to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of cesium-133 atom.

    		•
  • Q : Define Superconductivity

    Superconductivity: The phenomenon by which, at adequately low temperatures, a conductor can conduct the charge with zero (0) resistance. The current theory for describing superconductivity is the BCS theory.

    		•
  • Q : Explain Ideal gas laws or Boyle

    Explain Ideal gas laws or describe Boyle's law or Charle's law and Pressure law: Ideal gas laws: Boyle's law:

    		•
  • Q : What is Refraction law Refraction law:

    Refraction law: For a wave-front travelling via a boundary among two media, the first with a refractive index of n1, and the other with one of n2, the angle of incidence theta is associated to the angle of refraction phi by:

    		•
  • Q : Bell's inequality Bell's inequality

    Bell's inequality (J.S. Bell; 1964) - The quantum mechanical theorem that explains that if the quantum mechanics were to rely on the hidden variables, it should have non-local properties.    

    		•
  • Q : Black-hole dynamic laws or laws of

    Explain  laws of black-hole dynamics or First law of black hole dynamics and Second law of black hole dynamics? 

    Q : Define Atwood's machine Atwood's

    Atwood's machine: The weight-and-pulley system devised to compute the acceleration due to gravity at Earth's surface by computing the total acceleration of a set of weights of identified mass about a frictionless pulley.

    		•