Criticality evaluations with moderators other than water for uranium metal fuels

Occasionally, nuclear criticality safety analyses of fissile material handling operations or transport situations require consideration of moderation other than water. Such moderators could be oils, plastics, wood, concrete, carbon, or even wet sand. All of these materials contain either hydrogen, carbon, or mixtures of the two elements as the principal moderators. Other elements as part of the compounds or mixtures contribute less to the neutron slowing down process and can possibly be significant parasitic neutron absorbers. Results of a series of calculations are presented illustrating the impact of various moderators on critical masses or critical parameters as a function of lattice pitch for different uranium metal fuel elements at low 235U enrichments. Several nuclear criticality safety analyses performed at the Hanford N Reactor, operated by UNC Nuclear Industries for the US Department of Energy, have considered alternative moderators to assure that water moderation represented the most limiting case