Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the
2005 International RERTR Meeting

FUTURE NEEDS FOR HEU-FUELED CRITICAL ASSEMBLIES

Frank N. von Hippel
Program on Science and Global Security
Princeton University, 221 Nassau St, 2nd floor, Princeton, NJ 08542-4601 – USA

ABSTRACT

This is an unofficial report on the results of an IAEA-commissioned consultation on the “Future use of Critical and Subcritical Assemblies” that was carried out in Vienna in February 2005.

The recommendations were for:

1) Improvements in the IAEA’s research-reactor database (RRDB) in terms of content and accuracy;

2) Need-based planning for existing and new critical facilities and decisions for which existing facilities are no longer needed and can be decommissioned and which new or improved facilities are required to facilitate the development of innovative reactor designs;

3) Minimization of use of HEU and plutonium and the enrichment of HEU used in critical facilities; and

4) Data preservation and sharing so that experiments useful for benchmarking computer simulations of reactor neutronics need not be repeated.

The report contains a list of operating and shutdown but not decommissioned fueled critical and subcritical assemblies.

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