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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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NNSA awards BWXT $1.5B defense fuels contract
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded BWX Technologies a contract valued at $1.5 billion to build a Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) pilot plant in Tennessee in support of the administration’s efforts to build out a domestic supply of unobligated enriched uranium for defense-related nuclear fuel.
G. S. Brunson
Nuclear Technology | Volume 25 | Number 3 | March 1975 | Pages 553-571
Technical Paper | Instrument | doi.org/10.13182/NT75-A24393
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
High-resolution gamma spectrometry is routinely performed for fission product gases in Experimental Breeder Reactor II as a means of detecting and identifying fuel elements with leaks in the cladding. Detailed data accumulated for more than two years of operation has established background concentrations as well as the behavior of these fission products from eight different fuel elements. Different types of fuel have different “fingerprints.” It appears quite easy to distinguish a carbide leaker from either metal or oxide. The distinction between oxide and metal is less clear cut, but our results indicate that identification can be made with some confidence on the magnitude of the signal and on isotopic ratios, particularly the ratio 88Kr/138Xe. Further analysis has been made of the 23Ne activation rate, which is expected to be much higher and far more troublesome in future sodium-cooled fast reactors.