Our volume in the annual review series on this occasion represents a departure from our usual practice in that it serves as a Festschrift for Eugene Wigner. Dr. Wigner has won many honours in his long, wide ranging and distinguished career spanning so many upheavals in civilized life. The editors and the authors, indeed the whole nuclear engineering community, will wish to join in a modest but further acknowledgement of the contributions he has made to nuclear engineering, not least to the morality and professionalism of nuclear engineering in a year that has raised such international concerns over safety. It suffices to make a bald statement of Eugene Wigner's life and times here, for the first article of the volume is a loving appreciation by his long-time colleague, Alvin Weinberg, an evaluation of his contribution historically during and after the Second World War but equally an account of the philosophy which Wigner provided to the burgeoning profession. Eugene Wigner was born 17th November, 1902 in Budapest, Hungary and his early schooling is described by Dr. Weinberg.

Inhalt

Eugene Wigner and Nuclear Energy.- I. Introduction.- II. The Pre-Chicago Days.- III. Chicago Metallurgical Laboratory.- IV. Clinton Laboratories, 1946-47.- V. Reactor Physics and General Engineering.- VI. Macroscopic Reactor Theory.- VII. Temperature Effects: The Wigner-Wilkins Distribution.- VIII.Solid State Physics.- IX. Nuclear Physics at Chicago and Clinton.- X. General Energy Policy.- XI. Civil Defence.- XII. Wigner and the Founding of ORNL.- XIII.Eugene Wigner and Nuclear Energy.- XIV. Annotated Bibliographies.- References.- The PIUS Principle and the SECURE Reactor Concepts.- I. Introduction.- II. Design Goals for "Forgiving" LWRs.- III. The PIUS Design Principle.- IV. System Modelling.- V. Design Implementation.- VI. The Nuclear Power Reactor SECURE-P.- VII. The Heat Producing Reactor SECURE-H.- VIII.The Low Temperature Heating Reactor SECURE-LH.- IX. Concluding Remarks.- References.- PRISM: An Innovative Inherently Safe Modular Sodium Cooled Breeder Reactor.- I. Introduction.- II. Overall Plant Description.- III. Reactor Assembly and Support Structures.- IV. Heat Transport and Power Generation Systems.- V. Shutdown Heat Removal Systems.- VI. PRISM Inherent Safety Characteristics.- VII. Concept Summary and Implementation Strategy.- Acknowledgement.- References.- Generalised Perturbation Theory (GPT). A Heuristic Approach.- I. Introduction.- II. GPT Methodology for Linear Systems.- III. GPT Methodology for Nonlinear Systems.- IV. Fields of Interest.- V. Expansion of the Perturbed Field Function.- VI. Final Remarks.- Appendix 1: Frechet Derivatives.- Appendix 2: Second Order GPT Critical Systems Expressions.- Appendix 3: Discretised Systems.- Appendix 4: The Importance Function in the Enthalpy Field.- Appendix 5: Miscellaneous Arguments Relevant to GPT.- Appendix 6: Alternative Derivatrion in Temperature Field.- References.- Some Recent Developments in Finite Element Methods for Neutron Transport Theory.- I. Introduction.- II. Forms of the Transport Equation.- III. Approximate Solution Methods.- IV. A Unified Treatment.- V. Application of the Finite Element Method.- VI. Three Design Codes Illustrated.- VII. Composite Solutions.- VIII.Future Trends.- References.