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Division Spotlight
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
Lightbridge announces first U-Zr fuel rod samples extruded at INL
Lightbridge Corporation announced today that it has reached “a critical milestone” in the development of its extruded solid fuel technology. Coupon samples using an alloy of zirconium and depleted uranium—not the high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) that Lightbridge plans to use to manufacture its fuel for the commercial market—were extruded at Idaho National Laboratory’s Materials and Fuels Complex.
Dawn E. Janney, Steven L. Hayes
Nuclear Technology | Volume 203 | Number 2 | August 2018 | Pages 109-128
Critical Review | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1435137
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
More than 14 000 U-10Zr fuel rods (alloys of U with 10 wt% Zr) were irradiated in the Experimental Breeder Reactor II and Fast Flux Test Facility, with some irradiated to burnups of almost 20 at. %. However, very little information about properties of unirradiated U-10Zr alloys is available. These data are needed to help with interpretation of data from irradiated materials, to develop and validate phase diagrams and models of U-Zr and more complex systems, to inform and validate fuel performance codes, to design fuels for future fast reactors, and to guide future experimental investigations to fill in crucial gaps in knowledge.
This paper provides a summary and critical review of the available experimental data on phases and phase diagrams, electrical properties, thermal expansion, thermal conductivity, heat capacity, mechanical properties, vapor pressures, and thermodynamic properties of unirradiated U-10Zr alloys. Many of the reported values were published before approximately 1970 and are available only in obscure reports. This critical review concludes by identifying areas where additional experimental measurements are particularly necessary and makes recommendations on prioritization of new measurements with a view to the emerging needs associated with the mechanistic modeling of nuclear fuels and their performance.