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MIT professor develops method to verify compliance with Outer Space Treaty
Danagoulian
Areg Danagoulian of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is proposing a mechanism for verifying that Earth-orbiting satellites are in compliance with the Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits the placement of nuclear weapons in space. Danagoulian’s “concept and feasibility study,” titled “Verification of the Outer Space Treaty with cosmic protons,” was published recently in the journal Nature.
Tijo Vazhappilly, Arup Kumar Pathak
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 199 | Number 6 | June 2025 | Pages 967-976
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2024.2407699
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Uranium-zirconium (U-Zr) alloy fuels have been taken into consideration for fast reactors because of their superior reactor safety, high uranium (U) density, and excellent thermal conductivity. In this paper, the structural and mechanical properties of metallic U and U-Zr alloy fuels are calculated at the atomic level by density functional theory–based calculations with Hubbard U (density functional theory + U) corrections. Several structure-property relations, such as lattice volume, bulk modulus, Young’s modulus, shear modulus, electronic density of states, etc. are calculated for U metal and U-Zr alloy fuels. In addition, the Zr content in metallic U fuel is adjusted from roughly 5 at. % to 15 at. % in order to determine how the Zr content affects the characteristics of U-Zr fuel material. A linear relationship between the volume and Zr concentrations is observed. The concentration of Zr in the fuel affects the mechanical characteristics of U-Zr alloy fuel. It is also observed that the electronic structure of the α-U phase is not changed significantly in the presence of Zr. Our computations provide insight into how U-Zr alloy fuels behave in reactor conditions.