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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 8–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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
Japan gets new U for enrichment as global power and fuel plans grow
President Trump is in Japan today, with a visit with new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on the agenda. Takaichi, who took office just last week as Japan’s first female prime minister, has already spoken in favor of nuclear energy and of accelerating the restart of Japan’s long-shuttered power reactors, as Reuters and others have reported. Much of the uranium to power those reactors will be enriched at Japan’s lone enrichment facility—part of Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.’s Rokkasho fuel complex—which accepted its first delivery of fresh uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) in 11 years earlier this month.
E. Smith
Nuclear Technology | Volume 50 | Number 2 | September 1980 | Pages 187-189
Technical Note | Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT80-A32545
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
As a result of a post-irradiation metallographic study of power-ramped Canadian natural uranium, heavy-water-moderated and -cooled power (CANDU) reactor fuel rods, it was recently concluded that the observed beneficial effects of graphite CANLUB coating on CANDU fuel’s tolerance to power-ramp defects stem primarily from the interaction of the coating with fission products, rather than by lubrication of the fuel-cladding interface. These arguments are based on a consideration of fuel cracking patterns and the assumption that stress corrosion crack growth within the cladding is the controlling event in the failure process. While these arguments are examined in detail, the present reappraisal leads to the same view of the primary origin of the beneficial effects of graphite coatings on CANDU fuel rod performance.
