![]() The recovery of uranium from graphite - uranium carbide fuels, such as the Kiwi type used in the Rover project, by oxidation with oxygen or air and subsequent direct fluorination of ash by elemental fluorine is being investigated on an engineering scale. Several additional experiments established that the designs of the shipping containers and graphitizing fixture used for the elements are conservative. The minimum critical number of full- length elements in a moderated and reflected array was 40, containing about 4.6 kg of /sup 235/U. Experiments were also performed with uranium oxidegraphite elements from an early stage of production. The critical number of unmoderated elements in a reflected array was greater than 2500. lt was found that the minimum critical number of 66 elements, containirg about 5 kg of /sup 235/U occurred at an H: /sup 235/U atomic ratio of 380. In order to establish both the minimum critical number of watermoderated and -reflected elements and the relationship between moderation and critical more ยป number, several critical arrays covering a wide range of moderation were assembled. Throughout the experiments each element was encased in a sealed aluminum tube. The uranium concentration is 400 mg/cm/sup 3/, of which 93.15% is /sup 235/U, yielding a C: /sup 235/U atomic ratio of about 90. Each element is a 0.746-in.-dia and 50.5-in.-long uranium carbidegraphite cylinder containing seven uniformly spaced longitudinal holes. Critical experiments were performed with fuel elements for the Project Rover KIWI-B-2A reactor to determine nuclearly safe conditions for their production, storage, and transportation. ![]()
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