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Division Spotlight
Fuel Cycle & Waste Management
Devoted to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle including waste management, worldwide. Division specific areas of interest and involvement include uranium conversion and enrichment; fuel fabrication, management (in-core and ex-core) and recycle; transportation; safeguards; high-level, low-level and mixed waste management and disposal; public policy and program management; decontamination and decommissioning environmental restoration; and excess weapons materials disposition.
Meeting Spotlight
2025 ANS Annual Conference
June 15–18, 2025
Chicago, IL|Chicago Marriott Downtown
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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Smarter waste strategies: Helping deliver on the promise of advanced nuclear
At COP28, held in Dubai in 2023, a clear consensus emerged: Nuclear energy must be a cornerstone of the global clean energy transition. With electricity demand projected to soar as we decarbonize not just power but also industry, transport, and heat, the case for new nuclear is compelling. More than 20 countries committed to tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. In the United States alone, the Department of Energy forecasts that the country’s current nuclear capacity could more than triple, adding 200 GW of new nuclear to the existing 95 GW by mid-century.
R. F. Domagala, T. C. Wiencek, H. R. Thresh
Nuclear Technology | Volume 62 | Number 3 | September 1983 | Pages 353-360
Technical Note | Nuclear Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT83-A33258
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
As part of the National Reduced Enrichment Research and Test Reactor Program, Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) is engaged in a fuel alloy development project. The reduction of the 235U enrichment from above 90% to below 20% for such fuels would lessen the risk of diversion of the fuel for nonpeaceful uses. Fuel alloy powder prepared with low-enrich-ment uranium (<20% 235U) is dispersed in an aluminum matrix, and metallurgically roll bonded within a cladding of 6061 aluminum alloy. Miniplates with up to 55 vol% fuel alloy (up to 7.0 g total U/cm3) have been successfully fabricated. Fifty-five of these plates have been or are being irradiated in the Oak Ridge Research Reactor. Three fuel alloys have been used in the ANL miniplates: U3Si (U+4 wt% Si), U3Si2 (U + 7.5 wt% Si), and “U3SiAl” (U + 3.5 wt% Si + 1.5 wt% Al). All are candidates for permitting higher fuel loadings and thus lower enrichments of 235U than would be possible with either UAlx or U3O8, the current fuels for plate-type elements. A target loading of up to 7.0 g U/cm3 in the fuel zone was selected. To date the fabrication and irradiation results with the silicide fuels have been encouraging, and as an adjunct to the development effort, ANL is engaged in the early stages of technology transfer with commercial fabricators of fuel elements for research reactors. Continuing effort also involves the development of a technology for full-sized plate fabrication and the irradiation of miniplates to a burnup of ∼90% 235 U depletion.