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Westinghouse, Nordion, and PSEG team up to produce Co‑60 in the United States
This past January, Westinghouse Electric Company, Nordion, and PSEG Nuclear formalized agreements to implement newly developed cobalt-60 production technology at Units 1 and 2 of PSEG’s Salem nuclear power plant in New Jersey, with the Co-60 to be supplied to Nordion. Through an ongoing joint initiative, the companies aim to harness U.S. pressurized water reactors to produce a key medical isotope and build the first commercial-scale Co-60 production platform in the United States.
Douglas S. Drumheller
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 72 | Number 3 | December 1979 | Pages 347-356
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE79-A20390
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In many cases, the mixing of drops of hot liquid fuel with a more volatile coolant results in stable film boiling about the drops. At some later time, a disturbance can fragment the drops. This fragmentation increases the contact area between the liquids and results in a violent vaporization of the coolant. An understanding of this fragmentation mechanism is crucial to the prediction of the likelihood of violent fuel-coolant interactions. In this work, a fragmentation mechanism is proposed. It is shown how moderate pressure disturbances can cause the symmetrical collapse of a vapor film and allow the coolant to impact the drop. The impact is shown to be of sufficient strength to fragment the drop. This model quantitatively predicts the conditions necessary to lead to extensive fragmentation.