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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.
A. Abou-Sena, A. Ying, M. Abdou
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 56 | Number 1 | July 2009 | Pages 206-210
Tritium, Safety, and Environment | Eighteenth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Part 1) | doi.org/10.13182/FST09-A8903
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The thermal properties of the lithium ceramics pebble beds have a significant impact on the temperature profile of the Helium Cooled Pebble Bed blanket and the extraction of heat from the pebble beds to the coolant. The literature review showed a lack of experimental data on the interface thermal conductance (h) of lithium metatitanate pebble beds, therefore the objective of this study is to present experimental values of h. The measuring technique is based on the principles of steady state and axial heat flow methods. The lithium metatitanate pebble bed is single size (~O1.7-2.0mm pebbles) with a packing fraction of 61%. The values of h were measured at the interface of the pebbles with their container's wall (made of stainless steel 316). The results showed that h increased from 1800 to 5300W/m2.K with the increase of the wall temperature from 24 to 570°C. The theoretical values of h, calculated by three models, were compared with the experimental values. The theoretical and experimental values of h showed similar behavior with the increase of temperature. The present values of h will help to create a reliable database of the thermal properties of the lithium ceramics pebble beds.