From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
- Supercriticality refers to the condition of a nuclear mass after a certain number of neutrons has created a chain reaction in the mass. When a uranium mass is supercritical, it means that the escaping neutrons are colliding with more nuclei, which releases more neutrons to continue the process.
- For example, one neutron would hit the nucleus, causing two neutrons to be released, which would then hit the next nucleus, causing four neutrons to be released, and so on.
- A supercritical state is needed for a nuclear weapon to release its energy. Also, a nuclear reactor would need a minimal state of supercriticality in order to produce energy.
- In contrast, subcritical is the state of a nuclear mass when more neutrons are escaping than colliding with nuclei.
 Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) Supercriticality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercriticality) version history (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Supercriticality&action=history) GNU Free Documentation Lizenz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License)  CC-by-sa (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/)
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