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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.
C. L. Brown, L. C. Davenport, D. R Oden
Nuclear Technology | Volume 18 | Number 2 | May 1973 | Pages 109-114
Technical Paper | A Review of Plutonium Utilization in Thermal Reactors / Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT73-A31282
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The nuclear criticality safety aspects of light water reactor (Pu,U)O2 fuel fabrication have been reviewed. Conclusions are as follows: 1. Criticality safety limitations will present a major design challenge in those parts of the plant where plutonium and plutonium-uranium solutions are processed. In particular, the requirement of large vessel volume to achieve homogeneous plutonium-uranium blending will be complicated by the restrictive criticality safety limits necessary on vessel dimensions. Special vessel design, such as annular geometry, and fixed nuclear poisons are possible innovations to overcome this problem. 2. Once the PuO2 and UO2 are mixed and in dry powder form, plant throughput should proceed at a reasonable rate and criticality safety will not necessarily limit operations. 3. In dry operations, radiation protection limitations are likely to be more restrictive than criticality safety limitations. In other words, criticality safety limits will not be determining factors for process control, since the fuel will be well confined in glove boxes and handled in relatively small batches for radiation protection considerations. 4. The fact that plutonium recycle fuel will be fabricated in sealed glove boxes will make it more feasible to base criticality safety on limits for unmoderated fuel, in certain parts of the plant, than is now possible in UO2 fuel fabrication plants. 5. The basic critical masses and dimensions applicable to the fabrication of plutonium recycle fuel are expected to be only slightly more restrictive than those for light water reactor UO2 fuel.