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2026 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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Perpetual Atomics, QSA Global produce Am fuel for nuclear space power
U.K.-based Perpetual Atomics and U.S.-based QSA Global claim to have achieved a major step forward in processing americium dioxide to fuel radioisotope power systems used in space missions. Using an industrially scalable process, the companies said they have turned americium into stable, large-scale ceramic pellets that can be directly integrated into sealed sources for radioisotope power systems, including radioisotope heater units (RHUs) and radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs).
T. A. Gabriel, B. L. Bishop
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 68 | Number 1 | October 1978 | Pages 94-99
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE78-A27274
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The sensitivity of primary knock-on atom (PKA) spectra and displacement per atom (dpa) cross sections to different secondary neutron energy and angular distributions and “in-group” weighting schemes is investigated. It is shown that the sensitivity of the PKA spectra and dpa cross sections for the (n, n′ unresolved) and (n, 2n) reactions in iron to different angular distributions and the same secondary neutron spectrum is reasonably large (∼15%). For grossly different secondary neutron spectra and the same angular distribution, the change in the dpa cross section is smaller than one would initially expect. It is also shown that for aluminum, the sensitivity of dpa cross sections to different in-group weighting schemes is, for the most part, small.