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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.
Rene Sanchez, William Myers, David Hayes, Robert Kimpland, Peter Jaegers, Richard Paternoster, Stephen Rojas, Richard Anderson, William Stratton
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 129 | Number 2 | June 1998 | Pages 187-194
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE98-A1973
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The parameters that determine when critical mixtures of 239Pu, SiO2, and water and mixtures of 239Pu, Nevada tuff, and water are capable of sustaining an increasing neutron chain reaction as may be caused by a positive void coefficient at constant temperature are established. A single canister is considered that is loaded with up to 75 kg of 239Pu. A survey of critical spherical mixtures of plutonium, SiO2, tuff, and water at constant temperature is created and these results are examined to determine the mixtures that might be autocatalytic. Regions of criticality instability are identified that have the possibility of autocatalytic power behavior. A positive void coefficient is possible for a very limited range of wet systems.