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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Leading the charge: INL’s role in advancing HALEU production
Idaho National Laboratory is playing a key role in helping the U.S. Department of Energy meet near-term needs by recovering HALEU from federal inventories, providing critical support to help lay the foundation for a future commercial HALEU supply chain. INL also supports coordination of broader DOE efforts, from material recovery at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina to commercial enrichment initiatives.
M. B. Chadwick, P. G. Young
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 108 | Number 2 | June 1991 | Pages 117-125
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE91-A23812
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The 178Hf(16+) isomeric state has a 31-yr half-life and could pose serious radioactive activation problems in nuclear fusion reactors if its production in 14-MeV neutron-induced reactions is significant. The relatively high excitation energy (2.447 MeV) of this state causes it to lie in the continuum region. If rotational band members above this state were populated in a reaction, they would gamma cascade into it. While the existence of such levels can be justified theoretically, they have not been experimentally resolved; therefore, it is necessary to reconstruct the rotational levels built on the isomeric state. Using preequilibrium and compound nucleus theories, the cross sections for this and other hafnium isomeric states are calculated and compared with experimental measurements where available.