Scope for denaturizing weapons-grade plutonium in a subcritical heavy-water blanket of candu type

摘要

The following features occur in denaturing weapons plutonium by irradiating a mixture of plutonium and neptunium as oxides in a neutron flux:1)effective denaturation requires only a moderate neutron flux of 7·1013sec−1·cm−2, which is attainable in a heavy-water reactor;2)one can use a mixture of the oxides of weapons plutonium and neptunium at the edge of a high-flux blanket, for which there is marked nonuniformity in the energy production along the radius;3)the accumulation of 10–20238Pu in the campaign will cause considerable difficulties in storing the spent fuel and during regeneration on account of the high energy production by the238Pu (adding neptunium to the weapons plutonium fuel increases the energy production and the α activity of the unloaded fuel). Consequently, there is an engineering obstacle to stealing this material and making nuclear weapons