THE RELEASE OF FISSION PRODUCT GASES FROM A THIN FILM OF U3O8 DURING IRRADIATION IN THE DIDO REACTOR

摘要

Quantitative measurement of the rate of release of some longer lived rare gases is described and the results are compared with those obtained in a similar experiment in the BEPO reactor. Results show that, from a thin film, fission recoil is the major effect. Difficulties were encountered in measuring some of the rare gases with short half lives owing to interference from daughter products and the multiplicity of gamma peaks, and for the gases with long half lives diffusion from the walls of the irradiation vessel becomes important.nThe characteristics of the apparatus are described and some results are given of neutron flux and temperature distribution which were taken during the period of reactor start up.