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DTRA’s advancements in nuclear and radiological detection
A new, more complex nuclear age has begun. Echoing the tensions of the Cold War amid rapidly evolving nuclear and radiological threats, preparedness in the modern age is a contest of scientific innovation. The Research and Development Directorate (RD) at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is charged with winning this contest.
Yasuki Kowata, Nobuo Fukumura
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 99 | Number 4 | August 1988 | Pages 299-312
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE88-A23560
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Using the substitution method combined with the pulsed neutron technique, coolant void reactivities of PuO2-UO2 fuel lattices in pressure-tube-type heavy water reactors have been determined as functions of PuO2 enrichment in PuO2-UO2 (0.54 and 0.87 wt%), fissile content of plutonium (91 and 75% fissile plutonium), lattice pitch (Vm/Vf: 7.4 and 9.9), and coolant void fraction (0, 30, 70, 87, and 100%). The reference loading of 1.2 wt% enriched UO2 clusters was progressively replaced by PuO2-UO2 test clusters. The void reactivities were obtained from Simmons and King’s formula in which correction was made for a change of the prompt generation time. As decay constants can be maintained invariable due to substitution, buckling differences were analyzed by the first-order perturbation method, on the assumption that lattices are homogeneous and no difference in diffusion coefficients exists between the two lattices. Void reactivities of test lattices were determined with an accuracy of ∼10% when the minimum number of test fuel clusters was ∼5% of the total. The void reactivity shifted farther to the negative side as the proportion of fissile plutonium was increasingly in the PuO2-UO2 fuel of the same enrichment of plutonium.