Binding Energy Calculations - Essay Example

The difference in the mass (Δm), mass defect (Podgorsak 17),  in a nucleus comes about due to the fact that under normal convection, the mass of the protons and nucleons is assigned a rounded-off value, 1, which is not the actual mass of the neutrons nor the protons. The mass of a proton is equal to 1.00728 u, where u represents the atomic mass unit (AMU), whereas that of a neutron is equal to 1.00866 u. Summation of the masses in the nucleus, the mass of individual nucleons in the nucleus, should represent the actual mass, but the measurable mass is always less.

This inequality results in a phenomenon in the atomic properties referred to as the mass defect. The values obtained from the calculations above are as expected, with knowledge of the atomic structure and the expected differences in the atomic radius of the atoms; my deduction was that the larger the radius of the atom, the higher the binding energy needed to hold the atom together. The difference in the binding energy between Fe56 and Ra226 is associated with the difference in the atomic weight of the atoms.

The atom that has a higher number of nucleons requires higher energy to keep the nucleus at its short range. From the calculations of the binding energy, the higher the number of nucleons in the nucleus, particularly the neutron, results in a higher difference in the mass defect, which translates to high values of the binding energy. From the definition of binding energy as the energy that holds the nucleons together to form the nucleus, the k shell electron in the tungsten experiencing 69.5 KeV is at the stable element state.

Tungsten (W74) is made up of 74 protons or electrons and 110 neutrons. The atomic mass of the atom is 183.84 u, but by using the nucleons, we can get the mass defect: From the bidding energy calculated above, the binding energy to the K shell electron is a mere fraction of the total binding energy by the nucleus. The biding energy that the electron may be experiencing may be 69.5 KeV, which is the energy needed to extract the electron from the atom of tungsten, but it does not affect the total atomic mass of the atom significantly. The binding energy to the electron has insignificant significance to the biding energy by the nucleus.

By calculating the binding energy per nucleon, we can establish the stability of the atom (Podgorsak 18). The EB per nucleon is given by the division of the binding energy with the total number of nucleons in the atom, which in this case refers to the 174 nucleons (sum of neutrons and proton in tungsten).

The EB per nucleon is thus = 1538.194672 MeV / 174 = 8.84019993 MeV, which from the graph above falls within the stability region. No disintegration is caused by the minimal 69,5 KeV of the electron on the K shell.