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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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ANS joins others in seeking to discuss SNF/HLW impasse
The American Nuclear Society joined seven other organizations to send a letter to Energy Secretary Christopher Wright on July 8, asking to meet with him to discuss “the restoration of a highly functioning program to meet DOE’s legal responsibility to manage and dispose of the nation’s commercial and legacy defense spent nuclear fuel (SNF) and high-level radioactive waste (HLW).”
Hans K. Richards
Nuclear Technology | Volume 10 | Number 1 | January 1971 | Pages 54-61
Technical Paper and Note | Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT71-A30947
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Data are reported from experiments performed to measure thermal expansion of uranium carbide up to the meltin, point, the expansion accompanying the transition from solid to liquid, and thermal expansion in the liquid phase. The thermal expansion of the tantalum carbide crucibles, used to hold the uranium carbide specimens, was also measured. Experiments were performed using a high-temperature, helium-atmosphere, tungsten filament furnace. Compatibility tests showed that tungsten-graphite and tungsten-tantalum carbide pairs fused together at ∼2400°C; tantalum carbide and graphite remained compatible to 2800°C over the time scale necessary for the expansion measurements. Changes in the length of each expansion sample were measured by detecting electrical contact between the sample and a graphite rod. For measurements in which the uranium carbide was molten, a tantalum carbide disk was placed at the end of the graphite rod to prevent attack of the sensing rod by the molten uranium carbide. Melting point of the uranium carbide samples was 2550°C. The average uranium carbide linear thermal expansion from room temperature to the melting point is 17 × 10−1/°C. Volume expansion upon melting of uranium carbide is 11.4%. A provisional linear thermal expansion of 35.2 × 10−1/°C was measured for molten uranium carbide thermal expansion between 2650 and 2740°C.