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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.
MANSON BENEDICT, RAYMOND T. SHANSTROM, STANLEY L. AMBERG, N. BARRIE MCLEOD, PAUL T. STERANKA
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 11 | Number 4 | December 1961 | Pages 386-396
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE61-A26040
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Examples are given of the application of computer code FUELCYC to fuel cycle analysis of pressurized water, organic moderated, and heavy water reactors. Properties of these reactors evaluated include the flux energy spectrum, changes in fuel composition and effective cross sections on irradiation, and changes in power density distribution. The effects of different initial fuel enrichments and six different fuel and poison management procedures on the average burnup of fuel, its maximum burnup, the peak-to-average power density ratio and fuel cycle costs are investigated. Fuel cycle costs may be reduced by having good neutron economy, high burnup, and a steady fueling procedure in which neutrons are not wasted in control poison. Of the fueling methods examined, out-in fueling, or some discontinuous approximation to it, seems best because of its flat power-density distribution and relatively low fuel cycle cost. Where mechanically feasible, bidirectional axial fueling is also advantageous because of the uniform fuel burnup it makes possible and its low fuel cycle cost.