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November 8–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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DNFSB’s Summers ends board tenure, extending agency’s loss of quorum
Lee
Summers
The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, the independent agency responsible for ensuring that Department of Energy facilities are protective of public health and safety, announced that the board’s acting chairman, Thomas Summers, has concluded his service with the agency, having completed his second term as a board member on October 18.
Summers’ departure leaves Patricia Lee, who joined the DNFSB after being confirmed by the Senate in July 2024, as the board’s only remaining member and acting chair. Lee’s DNFSB board term ends in October 2027.
William A. Zanotelli, Stephen M. Craven, Garry D. Miller, William E. Moddeman, Frank Novak, David M. Hercules
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 85 | Number 1 | September 1983 | Pages 17-25
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE83-A17147
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The conditions inside the bubble formed in a hypothetical core disruptive accident (HCDA) of a liquid-metal fast breeder reactor have been simulated with a LAMMA 500 laser microprobe mass analyzer. Results for Na2U2O7 show that negative diuranate and positive sodium uranate ions are produced. Higher laser powers favor greater fragmentation to U+, [UO]+, and [UO2]+. The Na2O/UO2 results indicate vapor phase reactions result in the formation of positive and negative sodium uranate ion intermediates. Positive hydrogen ions are observed in some spectra. Higher laser energies (higher HCDA temperatures) favor sodium uranate ion formation. These data support the view that sodium uranate ionic precursors are formed in the vapor phase, bubble, of a simulated HCDA reaction. A prior argon-ion-excited secondary ion mass spectroscopy investigation of Na2O/UO2 and Na2U2O7 showed no sodium uranate species, only the formation of U+, [UO]+, and [UO2]+.
