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Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Deep Space: The new frontier of radiation controls
In commercial nuclear power, there has always been a deliberate tension between the regulator and the utility owner. The regulator fundamentally exists to protect the worker, and the utility, to make a profit. It is a win-win balance.
From the U.S. nuclear industry has emerged a brilliantly successful occupational nuclear safety record—largely the result of an ALARA (as low as reasonably achievable) process that has driven exposure rates down to what only a decade ago would have been considered unthinkable. In the U.S. nuclear industry, the system has accomplished an excellent, nearly seamless process that succeeds to the benefit of both employee and utility owner.
D. E. LaValle, D. A. Costanzo, W. J. Lackey, A. J. Caputo
Nuclear Technology | Volume 33 | Number 3 | May 1977 | Pages 290-295
Technical Paper | Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT77-A31790
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The fuel for the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor consists of uranium and thorium species in the form of microspheres encapsulated in layers of pyrolytic carbon and silicon carbide and bonded into fuel rods. An important characterization of these particles is the fraction in a particular sample or rod that may have defective coatings that would allow the release of gaseous and metallic fission products. In the chlorine leach method for this determination, the fuel exposed by defective coatings is volatilized as the heavy metal chlorides at 1000°C. This method is now adapted for the examination of irradiated fuel rods in a hot cell. It is also extended to chlorinations at 1500°C by induction heating, permitting the rapid examination (2 to 3 h) of unirradiated fuel rods.
