Atomic and Nuclear PhysicsDOE-HDBK-1019/1-93CHART OF THE NUCLIDESCHART OF THE NUCLIDESThe Chart of the Nuclides, like the Periodic Table, is a convenient formatfor presenting a large amount of scientific information in an organizedmanner.EO 1.6DEFINE the following terms:a.Enriched uraniumb.Depleted uraniumChartoftheNuclidesA tabulated chart called the Chart of the Nuclideslists the stable and unstable nuclides in additionto pertinent information about each one. Figure 3 shows a small portion of a typical chart. Thischart plots a box for each individual nuclide, with the number of protons (Z) on the vertical axisand the number of neutrons (N = A - Z) on the horizontal axis. The completely gray squares indicate stable isotopes. Those in white squares are artificiallyradioactive, meaning that they are produced by artificial techniques and do not occur naturally.By consulting a complete chart, other types of isotopes can be found, such as naturally occurringradioactive types (but none are found in the region of the chart that is illustrated in Figure 3).Located in the box on the far left of each horizontal row is general information about theelement. The box contains the chemical symbol of the element in addition to the average atomicweight of the naturally occurring substance and the average thermal neutron absorption crosssection, which will be discussed in a later module. The known isotopes (elements with the sameatomic number Z but different mass number A) of each element are listed to the right. Rev. 0Page 11NP-01
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