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> How exactly can you control the nuclear decay? That's what the control rods are for. The uranium in one fuel rod in isolation decays at whatever natural rate, which would warm water but not boil it, and placing the rods near each other allows for the decay products (high energy particles) to interact with other fuel rods and induce more rapid decay. The control rods slot in between the fuel rods, and absorb the decay products without inducing further nuclear decay. Usually these are graphite rods. > How exactly does do the gears in the transmission move around and combine with eachother to create a specific gear ratio? It really depends on the specific transmission, a manual transmission is using the shift lever movement to move the gears into place. An automatic transmission most likely uses solenoids to move things (a solenoid is basically a coil of wires around a tube with a moveable metal rod inside, when you put current through the wire, the metal rod is pulled into the tube, you attach the larger thing you want to move to the end of the rod (sometimes with a pivot or what not), and use a spring, another solenoid, or gravity, etc to make the reverse movement. A solenoid by itself gives you linear movement, if you need rotational movement, one way to do that is have a pivot on the end of the solenoid rod, then a rod from there to one end of a clamp on a shaft, then when the solenoid pulls in its rod, the shaft will rotate (this is the basic mechanism for pinball flippers). |
AFAIU graphite rods increase fission by slowing (not capturing) neutrons which in turn have a better chance of propagating further fission, because .. physics.
Quite nifty actually - without the moderator, the fuel wont burn.