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2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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The drive to Kairos Power’s reactor demonstration site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is not only scenic—it’s historic. Nearly 85 years ago, roughly 30,000 construction workers transformed orchards and farmland into a key Manhattan Project site. Depending on your route, you may pass by one of the three gatehouses that were once military checkpoints controlling access to Atomic Energy Commission production facilities.
Alvin Radkowsky
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 90 | Number 4 | August 1985 | Pages 381-387
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE85-A18485
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the seed-blanket core concept, the major portion of the core power is typically produced in subcritical regions known as “blankets.” The small supercritical regions that drive the blankets are known as “seeds.” The concept lends itself to geometry control in which moving the seeds varies the leakage of neutrons into fertile material, thus avoiding the loss of neutrons to parasitic control devices. As a burner, the seed-blanket concept has significant advantages in the reduction of initial fuel loading and improvement in resource utilization. As a breeder, the seed-blanket concept has further advantages in making it feasible to obtain negative void and moderator reactivity coefficients. A summary is presented of recent studies of the application of the seed-blanket core concept with both heavy water and light water moderation.