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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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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NNSA awards BWXT $1.5B defense fuels contract
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded BWX Technologies a contract valued at $1.5 billion to build a Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) pilot plant in Tennessee in support of the administration’s efforts to build out a domestic supply of unobligated enriched uranium for defense-related nuclear fuel.
Ralph W. Seidensticker, Howard L. Schreyer
Nuclear Technology | Volume 51 | Number 3 | December 1980 | Pages 489-498
Technical Paper | Mechanics Applications to Fast Breeder Reactor Safety / Reactor | doi.org/10.13182/NT80-A32584
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Prestressed concrete containment structures can withstand the highest pressures resulting from the worst accident conditions postulated for liquid-metal fast breeder reactor plants. However, in addition to pressure loads, other potential hazards exist, such as internally generated missiles, hydrogen deflagration, and sodium fire. The latter is potentially the most critical because of the high temperatures that are involved. Preliminary indications are that with a reasonable research effort focused on experiments, appropriate constitutive models, and innovative design concepts, it would be shown that this threat could also be contained. The research is proposed because there is a good possibility that prestressed concrete could withstand in a completely passive mode all of the accident scenarios that are currently being postulated. If this could be shown in a definitive sense, the social and economic benefits would be very significant.