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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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New coolants, new fuels: A new generation of university reactors
Here’s an easy way to make aging U.S. power reactors look relatively youthful: Compare them (average age: 43) with the nation’s university research reactors. The 25 operating today have been licensed for an average of about 58 years.
Timothy D. Welch, August W. Cronenberg
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 67 | Number 2 | August 1978 | Pages 263-269
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE78-A15444
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An important question to the liquid-metal fast breeder reactor safety program is a description of molten fuel dynamics, or, more specifically, whether fuel will freeze locally on structural material within the reactor core, preventing dispersal and nuclear shutdown, or in the extremeties of the fuel assembly. In this Note, a comparison is made between the solidification processes for single-component (i.e., UO2) and mixed-oxide fuel [i.e., (U, Pu)O2] by solving a Stefan-type problem for both pure and binary alloy solidification. Analytic calculations indicate that the freezing rate of the mixed fuel is not significantly different from that for the single-component system; thus, single-front analysis may be used for such mixed-oxide fuels in assessing safety questions associated with solidifacation phenomena.