Plutonium: Coping with instability From: JOM | Date: September 1, 2003| Author: | Copyright Minerals, Metals & Materials Society Sep 2003. Provided by ProQuest LLC.Copyright information

Plutonium is unstable with time because of its radioactive decay, but it is the peculiar nature of its electronic structure that gives rise to phase instability with temperature, pressure, and chemical additions, making engineering applications particularly challenging. This instability leads to an interesting array of phase transformations and microstructures.

INTRODUCTION

Plutonium is of interest because of its nuclear properties. The 239 isotope of plutonium fissions when bombarded with neutrons over a large range of neutron energies, releasing millions of times the energy typically ...

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