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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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Latest News
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.
G. Bonny, P. Blanpain, D. Rozzia, S. Billiet, M. Verwerft, B. Boer
Nuclear Technology | Volume 210 | Number 2 | February 2024 | Pages 216-231
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2264505
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In this work, a detailed reevaluation of a past power-to-melt experiment performed within the so-called High Burnup Chemistry project is provided. A pressurized water reactor–type UO2 fuel rod was base irradiated in Belgian Reactor 3 up to a peak pellet burnup of 60 MWd/kgU. After base irradiation, the rod experienced a power ramp experiment in Belgian Reactor 2, reaching a ramp terminal level of 70 kW/m (later adjusted to 66 kW/m). Extensive post-irradiation examination was performed after both the base irradiation and the power ramp experiment. After the power ramp experiment, rod cladding failure and local fuel melting were observed. Fuel melting was observed in an 85-mm region around the peak power pellet with a normalized molten fuel radius in the range r/r0 = 0.20 to 0.27. The threshold power for melting derived from this experiment was 63.0 ± 4.4 kW/m.
