3 Aug (NucNet): US enrichment company USEC has installed its lead cascade machines and they are undergoing testing in preparation to start operations in the coming weeks, the company said on 1 August 2007.
After testing centrifuge components and individual full-size prototype machines in test facilities in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USEC has now begun a demonstration and testing phase with full-size prototype machines connected in a closed-loop cascade configuration at its site in Piketon, Ohio.
The lead cascade will test the design of centrifuges that are to be used in the commercial American Centrifuge Plant, a uranium enrichment facility USEC is building at its site in Ohio.
USEC said it plans to finalise the design of the AC100, the first series of plant production centrifuges, in 2008.
The initial cascade was intentionally limited to fewer than 20 machines. That arrangement will demonstrate the design’s reliability while reducing costs, USEC said.
“We have introduced uranium hexafluoride gas into the individual centrifuge machines and are running a series of tests. If the start-up process continues to go well, the staff at the demonstration facility will begin piping the gas from machine to machine in a cascade configuration,” said John Welch, USEC president and chief executive officer.
A cascade is an arrangement of centrifuge machines designed to increase the level of the U235 isotope in uranium from the 0.71 percent level found in nature to the four to five percent level of U235 typically required by commercial nuclear power plants.
>>Related reports in the NucNet database (available to subscribers)
USEC Gets Go-Ahead For American Centrifuge Plant (News No. 96, 16 April 2007)
USEC Selects Centrifuge Components Manufacturer (World Nuclear Review No. 26, 29 June 2007)
