MAE-118C: Twenty-first
Century Energy Technologies-II
Introduction to Nuclear Fission and Fusion
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University
of California San Diego
Spring-2008
Telephone: 534-9724
Email: gtynan@ucsd.edu
Office Hours: Fridays 930am-1130am
Teaching
Assistant:
Mr. J.
Steven Ross
Office:
EBU-II Room L-309
Phone:
534 4971
E-mail:
ross47@gmail.com
Office
Hours: Monday/Wednesday 3:30pm-4:30pm
VERY
IMPORTANT: For email contact with the instructor or TA please put ÒMAE 118CÓ first in the subject of the
email. We receive many emails each day, and this helps to avoid us not
seeing or reading your messages.
Course Objective: Introduce the science and technology of nuclear fission and
fusion for primary energy generation.
Composition of atomic nucleus.
Fundamentals of radiation and nuclear reactions. Fission chain reaction and conditions
for criticality in a fission reactor.
Nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear waste. Conditions for fusion.
Energy breakeven requirements for fusion. Elements of magnetic confinement fusion and inertial
confinement fusion. Status and
prospects for fusion energy.
Suggested background: Upper level fluid dynamics, thermodynamics, and/or vector
calculus and ordinary differential equations. Familiarity with classical electromagnetism and MaxwellÕs equations
would also help, but is not essential.
Course Grading:
Homework assignments will count 10% towards the final grade. The mid-term will count as 400% of the
grade, the final exam will count for 50% of the grade.
Exams: We will have a
mid-term exam and a final exam.
Both will be closed book/closed notes. I will hand out pertinent information (e.g. tables, graphs,
conversion factors, etcÉ) with the exam so that students need not memorize
detailed information. Students
should bring blue books for the exams to reduce the risk of lost sheets of
papers.
Texts:
ÒIntroduction to Nuclear Engineering 3rd Edition,
J.R. Lamarch and A.J. Baratta, Addison-Weley 2001
ÒPrinciples of Fusion Energy: An Introduction to Fusion Energy for Science and Engineering
StudentsÓ, Harms, Schoepf, Miley, & Kingdon, World Scientific, 2000
Remark
on Office Hours:
You
are welcome to go over anything from class during office hours, including
general ideas and methods for solving particular problems. You should
come prepared - that means that you have reviewed the relevant notes, you have
done the assigned reading, and you have gone over any example problems that
were provided. If you need help with a specific problem, you should bring
the work you have been able to do.
Regrades:
If
you believe that there is a mistake in the grading of an assignment or an exam,
describe the error in writing and give the whole assignment or exam back to the
instructor or a TA. Regrades are accepted for one week after graded
assignments are returned to you, so, for example, if you receive a graded
homework back on a Thursday, the last day to request a regrade is on the
following Thursday.
Academic
Integrity:
The
instructor takes the principles of academic honesty very seriously, and expect
you to read and understand the campus policy on Integrity of Scholarship, which
is linked electronically here:
http://www-senate.ucsd.edu/manual/appendices/app2.htm#AP14.
You are free to discuss assignments with the instructors,
the TAs, and your fellow students – in fact talking about ideas and
approaches is a good way to learn the material. However, plagiarism and other forms of neglecting to give
credit for other peoplesÕ ideas are strictly prohibited. Homework solutions
which you turn in should be your own work and should not merely be copies of
the work of other students. Please
speak with the instructor if you have any questions about academic honesty or
if you observe any questionable behaviors in class. Any violation of the
UCSD Policy on Integrity of Scholarship is grounds for submission of the matter
to appropriate UCSD review procedures.