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Undeclared uranium hitches a ride on cobalt exports from Congo, study says
Philippe (left) and Manzuk quantified the amount of uranium that has been exported from the DRC in cobalt shipments or left behind in the environment. (Photo: Joel Hallberg/UW–Madison)
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Princeton University have published a study in Nature Communications that calls attention to a blind spot in nuclear nonproliferation: The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has exported thousands of metric tons of uranium, and there is no accounting for where it has gone.
In partnership with Lighthouse Reports and the Financial Times, UW–Madison nuclear engineering professor and nuclear security expert Sébastien Philippe and Ryan Manzuk, a geologist and research fellow in Philippe’s group and at Princeton, conducted the study using countrywide mineralization and geochemical data.
Shunsuke Uchida, Masanori Naitoh, Hidetoshi Okada, Taku Ohira, Seiichi Koshizuka, Derek H. Lister
Nuclear Technology | Volume 178 | Number 3 | June 2012 | Pages 280-297
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT12-A13594
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A six-step evaluation procedures have been proposed to evaluate the local wall thinning due to flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) and that due to liquid droplet impingement (LDI). Corrosive conditions were calculated with a N2H4-O2 reaction analysis code. Precise flow turbulence at major parts of the system was analyzed with the three-dimensional computational flow dynamics code to obtain mass transfer coefficients at structure surfaces. Then, wall thinning rates were calculated with the coupled model of electrochemical analysis and oxide layer growth analysis by applying the corrosive conditions and the mass transfer coefficients.To apply computer simulation codes for wall thinning due to FAC and LDI to evaluate residual life and the effectiveness of countermeasures, accuracy and applicability of the codes were confirmed based on verification and validation processes. From comparison of the calculated wall thinning rates due to FAC with hundreds of measured results for secondary piping of an actual pressurized water reactor plant, it was confirmed that the calculated wall thinning rates agreed with the measured ones within a factor of 2 and the accuracy of the evaluation model for residual pipe wall thickness after 1 year of operation had an error of <20%. Finally, just the FAC simulation code was applied to evaluate the effects of oxygen injection into the feedwater line.From comparison of the calculated wall thinning rates due to LDI with measured results for vent lines of an actual boiling water reactor plant, it was confirmed that the calculated local wall thinning rates agreed with the measured ones within about a factor of 2, though there were still some outside that region.