Re: TML Msg 2313, Nuclear Reactor Design Rules

In TML Msg 2313, Scott Kellogg writes:

> Design problem #117[a]:  NUCLEAR FISSION REACTOR FUEL CONSUMPTION
>
> I did a little computation from a book I have on contemporary naval
> vessels using the stated range of several ships and their reactor
> power output to calculate the total fuel consumed (as given by
> MegaTrav rules).
>
> These estimates are based that the reactor ran at full power
> constantly over the range and speed traveled. This is a BAD
> assumption, but it should give us an order of magnitude. The USS
> Nautilus had three reactor cores in it's life. The first should
> have consumed 136.7% of the total weight of the ship, The second
> core should have consumed 201.0% of the ship. The third core should

Being a nuclear engineer and working at a power plant, I suppose I should
really look into the fission reactor design rules.  One thing to note
is that the fuel consumption for a civilian power reactor is completely
different from that of a naval reactor.

Having worked on both, I can tell you that the actual reactor designs
are very different and the naval reactor is much more efficient with respect
to power density.  I'm not sure which data was used to determine the
tables in the MT rules but the numbers should be very different depending
on which data you choose to use.  Though they should not be in the percentage
range that Scott identifies. So, I'll try to spend some time and look at the
tables trying to make some sense of them.

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| *-=Carl=-*  INTERNET - [email removed] |  A generation which ignores  |
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