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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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.
R. A. Matzie, D. C. Leung, Y. Liu, R. W. Beekmann
Nuclear Technology | Volume 52 | Number 2 | February 1981 | Pages 189-197
Technical Paper | Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/NT81-A32664
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Nuclear reactors are inherently capable of operating for a substantial period beyond their nominal end of cycle (EOC) as a result of negative moderator and fuel temperature coefficients and the decrease in xenon poisoning with lower core power levels. This inherent capability can be used to advantage to reduce annual uranium makeup requirements and cycle energy costs by the use of planned EOC stretchout. The benefits of planned stretchout are assessed in the context of extended-burnup fuel cycles for two methods of operation: normal power coastdown and feedwater-pressure augmentation (FWPA). In the latter method, feedwater temperature is reduced allowing extended operation at full rated core power but at a lower thermal efficiency. The extent to which FWPA can be practiced is limited, primarily, by turbine operating conditions, resulting in a differential benefit in uranium utilization of only ∼0.5% above that of normal power coastdown.