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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 8–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Japan gets new U for enrichment as global power and fuel plans grow
President Trump is in Japan today, with a visit with new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on the agenda. Takaichi, who took office just last week as Japan’s first female prime minister, has already spoken in favor of nuclear energy and of accelerating the restart of Japan’s long-shuttered power reactors, as Reuters and others have reported. Much of the uranium to power those reactors will be enriched at Japan’s lone enrichment facility—part of Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd.’s Rokkasho fuel complex—which accepted its first delivery of fresh uranium hexafluoride (UF₆) in 11 years earlier this month.
G. E. Hansen, D. P. Wood, W. U. Geer
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 8 | Number 6 | December 1960 | Pages 588-594
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE60-A25845
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Critical masses have been measured for enriched-uranium-metal cylinders reflected on both ends and on one end only by multiple layers of two and three of the metals Cu, Fe, Zn, Ni, and stainless steel. For other measurements the core was partially moderated with graphite and with polyethylene so as to give the influence of decreased neutron energy upon reflector savings of the multiple reflectors. Critical mass values with composite reflectors are less than the simple averages of values for the elements alone. This reduction of critical mass, most pronounced for the Ni-Fe reflectors, is primarily due to the fact that the self-shielding of the scattering resonances in medium-Z elements is appreciable when one-element reflectors are used, and is reduced when two or more of these elements are mixed in the reflectors.