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2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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Urenco USA marks enrichment milestones
Urenco USA has highlighted the completion of a successful year of advancing nuclear fuel supply in the U.S. by achieving two new milestones this month: The first production of enriched uranium above 5 percent uranium-235, and the startup of the company’s next cascade of centrifuges as part of its capacity installation program.
K. Lisa Reed, Farzad Rahnema
Nuclear Technology | Volume 208 | Number 3 | March 2022 | Pages 562-574
Technical Note | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2021.1935166
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Previous work presented a set of stylized three-dimensional benchmark problems based on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) preconceptual design of a fluoride-salt-cooled small modular advanced high-temperature reactor, or SmAHTR, with prismatic assemblies fueled by tri-isotropic (TRISO) particles. That previous work created a detailed description of the benchmark problems by closing several outstanding design gaps from the ORNL preconceptual design report, notably by addressing the lack of active control mechanisms, for which control rod “bundles” were implemented.
In this technical note, the creation of two additional stylized benchmark problem sets based on that past work is detailed, offering two new control rod configurations. The fluoride salt, small size, and highly heterogeneous TRISO-fueled pins make these additional benchmark problem sets useful numerical validation references in benchmarking neutronics tools against continuous-energy stochastic Monte Carlo results. Detailed reference results, including the eigenvalue (keff) and 1/11th assembly-averaged relative fission density distributions, are provided for both control rod configurations in full-core cases with all control rods withdrawn and all control rods fully inserted. A near-critical core benchmark problem and results are provided for one configuration. The provided results are calculated using the continuous-energy Monte Carlo code MCNP.