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NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE SEA

Carlos Alberto Aragão de Carvalho Filho
Renato Machado Cotta

Guilherme da Silva Sineiro

1. Introduction

Nuclear technologies have their origins fissionable heavy nucleus. The following
in scientific and technological advanc- year, Fermi and Szilárd built the “Fermi
es in the 1930s and 1940s. Indeed, the Stack”, considered the prototype of the
first nuclear reaction was investigated in first nuclear reactor.
1932 by Sir John Douglas Cockcroft and The first nuclear reactor for controlled
Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton (winners energy production, the one in Obninsk, in
of the Nobel Prize in Physics – 1951). In the Soviet Union, capable of generating 5

1933, Léo Szilárd proposed the idea of a MWe (megawatts of electrical power), ap-
chain reaction for the copious production peared in 1954. A year later, the first nucle-
of neutrons and the release of nuclear ar-powered submarine, the Nautilus, came
energy. The following year, Enrico Fermi into operation, a result of the US Navy’s
(Nobel Prize in Physics – 1938) suggested nuclear program, led by Admiral Hyman
mechanisms for moderating the energy of George Rickover. It is quite reasonable to
these neutrons. Four years later, Otto Hahn consider this event as the starting point for
(Nobel Prize in Chemistry – 1944) and Fritz the application of nuclear technologies at
Strassmann arrived at the fission of the sea. Since then, several technologies that
uranium nucleus and the chain reaction involve nuclear reactions and processes
suggested by Szilárd. The theoretical ex- have been created and improved, their
planation of nuclear fission was proposed spectrum of application has been expand-
in 1939 by Lise Meitner and her nephew, ed and they became of common usage by
Otto Robert Frisch. In the 1940s, Glenn society. In the remaining sections of this
Theodore Seaborg and Edwin Mattison chapter, we will describe them, reserving
McMillan (Nobel Prize in Chemistry – 1951) the discussion of their use in the maritime
discovered, in 1941, plutonium, another environment for the end.

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Nuclear Technologies for the Sea
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