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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.
Joel A. Kulesza
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 200 | Number 2 | February 2026 | Pages 241-245
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2025.2483123
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper resolves a perennial point of confusion regarding the source-weighting normalization factor recommended in the MCNP manual () to stochastically estimate the volume of a region within an enclosing inward-directed spherical surface source with radius . The normalization factor arises from the relationship between a sphere’ s mean chord length, its volume, and the values estimated by MCNP track-length tallies. A brief derivation is given that relates these quantities and results in the stated normalization. The correctness of this factor is demonstrated by estimating the volume of a variety of convex and nonconvex volumes. A heuristic demonstration of how biasing the inward-directed source reduces the statistical uncertainty of the stochastic volume estimate is also given, but a rigorous analysis of this improvement is left as future work.