ENGR 59904 NUCLEAR REACTOR PHYSICS AND ENGINEERING Midterm Exam 2012 SPRING - Answer all three questions

ns in 110 minutes for a total mark of 90. - Only the lecture notes, textbook and handouts are permitted. No assignment solutions are allowed. 1. Radioactive Decay and Carbon Dating (30 marks) A quantity of a parent radionuclide which undergoes radioactive decay to a stable daughter nuclide at a rate of 1,000 disintegrations per second (dps) at t = 0 has decreased to a rate of 150 dps after exactly one hour. a) Detmine the decay constant, !, in min-1, and the half life of the radionuclide in minutes? (10 marks) b) How many atoms of the parent radionuclide were present at t = 0? (5 marks) c) Calculate the number of atoms of the stable daughter nuclide formed after 1 hour? (5 marks) d) One of the most frequent uses of the radioactive decay principle above is in estimating the age of remains from archaeological sites by carbon dating. During photosynthesis, plants incorporate radioactive 14C from air and maintain a constant 14C activity at 14.5 dpm per gram carbon. Over the past 60,000 years, the radioactivity of 14C in both air and living plants remained unchanged at 14.5 dpm per gram carbon. After the plant dies, however, photosynthesis stops and 14C in the plant decays with a half life of 5,730 years. Calculate the age (tage) in years of a wood sample from an Egyptian tomb if the 14C activity today is found to be 9.5 dpm per gram of carbon, reduced from the value of 14.5 dpm per gram of carbon tage years ago. (10 marks) 2. Nuclear Reaction and Dynamics (30 marks) Consider an endothermic nuclear reaction, n + X " Y + p in which a neutron, n, hits a target nucleus, X, initially at rest. The Q-value for this reaction is -3.5 MeV, and the following nuclear masses can be used. Neutron Target nucleus, X mn = 1.0 amu mX = 7.0 amu mp, Ep # $ mn, En mX, EX = 0 mY, EY After the reaction Before the reaction Proton Product nucleus, Y mp = 1.0 amu mY = 7.0 amu

a) What is the minimum kinetic energy of the neutron (in MeV) required for this reaction to occur? (8 marks) b) If the proton is detected at an angle, # = 60o as shown above and moves with a kinetic energy, Ep = 0.1 MeV, calculate the kinetic energy of the incident neutron, En. (12 marks) c) Calculate the kinetic energy, EY, and the angle, $, of the product nucleus. (10 marks)
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3. Radioactive Decay and Gamma Attenuation (30 marks) A radioactive material, A, which emits 400 keV gamma rays, is placed next to a shielding material as shown below. The initial activity of A is 75 mCi and it has a half life of 30 days. It decays to an isotope, B, a 200 keV gamma emitter which has a half life of 430 days. The isotope B then decays to a stable nuclide. a) If only the isotope A was present at t = 0, calculate the activities of A and B one year later (365 days) in disintegrations per second (dps). Do not solve the decay rate equations, but use the solutions given in class. (10 marks) b) The shielding material consists of two plates made of steel and concrete with thicknesses, Ls and Lc, respectively. At t = 0, only A emits gamma rays but after one year, As contributions can be assumed to be negligible compared to B. When the intensity of the gamma rays from the radioactive material hitting the shield is Io, the intensity is reduced to I1 after passing through the steel and concrete plates. If the gamma attenuation by the two plates is found to be given by I1/Io = 0.088 at t = 0 and I1/Io = 0.0287 after one year, calculate the steel and concrete plate thicknesses Ls and Lc, using the linear attenuation coefficients of steel and concrete for 200 keV and 400 keV gamma rays given below. (20 marks) Gamma Ray Energy 200 keV 1.15 cm-1 Steel (%s) Concrete (%c) 0.25 cm-1 400 keV 0.74 cm-1 0.19 cm-1

Ls Lc
Io I1

Radioactive material

Steel Concrete Shielding materials