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Texas A&M welcomes uranium conversion research
The Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) has signed a research agreement with Quantum Leap Energy (QLE) “to advance and de-risk the commercial production of high-purity uranium hexafluoride (UF6).”
QLE is an Austin, Texas–based subsidiary of ASP Isotopes (ASPI), which is developing an isotope enrichment platform for applications in nuclear energy, nuclear medicine, and semiconductors. QLE specializes in the uranium conversion step of the nuclear fuel cycle—the conversion of yellowcake uranium concentrate (U3O8) into UF6 prior to enrichment.
Yoshiki Oshima, Tomohiro Endo, Akio Yamamoto, Yasuhiro Kodama, Yasunori Ohoka, Hiroaki Nagano
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 194 | Number 6 | June 2020 | Pages 477-491
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2020.1722512
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The impact of various parameters in the coarse mesh finite difference (CMFD) acceleration method on overall convergence behavior is investigated through numerical calculations using the method of characteristics (MOC). Four parameters appearing in the CMFD acceleration with MOC, i.e., scalar flux distribution in flat flux regions (FFRFlux), the scalar flux distribution in CMFD meshes (CMFDFlux), homogenized cross sections (HXSs) in CMFD meshes, and current correction factors (CCFs), are considered. Parts of these four parameters are fixed to the converged values throughout iterations in order to estimate their impact on convergence. Numerical calculations are carried out for Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology’s (KAIST’s) benchmark problem KAIST-2A, which is a heterogeneous and multigroup problem, and the number of outer iterations to reach convergence is evaluated. The impact of geometric heterogeneity and cross-section homogenization in the CMFD acceleration has not been considered in linearized Fourier analysis so far. The calculation results indicate that (1) convergence of HXS has little impact on the overall convergence, (2) convergence of FFRFlux is dominant followed by CCF when a CMFD mesh is optically thin, and (3) convergence of FFRFlux is dominant when a CMFD mesh is optically thick and contains many flat flux regions.