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The American Centrifuge Demonstration Facility at the Piketon, Ohio site is located in a portion of an existing process building that will ultimately house the American Centrifuge Plant.
In August 2007, USEC began the Lead Cascade test program at the facility, an integrated testing phase of the American Centrifuge technology involving multiple machines in a cascade configuration.
In a centrifuge enrichment facility, a cascade is a group of centrifuge machines connected in a series and parallel arrangement to achieve an intended isotope separation capability. A commercial uranium enrichment facility that uses gas centrifuge technology is made up of multiple cascades.
The number and arrangement of centrifuge machines in a cascade can vary. The cascade tested during the Lead Cascade test program consists of fewer than 20 prototype machines, including spare machines. Initiating the Lead Cascade test program marked another important step in the deployment of the American Centrifuge Plant.
USEC has achieved a number of key objectives through the Lead Cascade test program, including:
During 2007, USEC's project team operated and tested individual machines at the demonstration facility. In August 2007, the team successfully commenced cascade operations in a closed-loop configuration.
Since the beginning of 2008, the American Centrifuge machines involved in the Lead Cascade integrated testing program have operated for more than 30,000 machine hours, providing data on equipment reliability and identifying opportunities to further optimize the machine and cascade design.
The license issued by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the demonstration facility specifies that the machines be operated in a closed-loop configuration where the uranium gas is enriched, depleted and recombined in a repetitive cycle. The demonstration facility license permits test samples of enriched uranium to be withdrawn through a mass spectrometer. The ability to separate uranium isotopes is tested by analyzing these samples.
The data obtained from testing were consistent with the predictions of the Company's analytical models regarding the product assays generated and the SWU performance achieved. These tests validated the feasibility of closed-loop cascade operations and demonstrated the capability of the American Centrifuge technology to produce nuclear fuel at commercial product assay levels.
The testing of Lead Cascade operations is expected to continue for an extended period at various operating conditions and configurations to aid in confirming design parameters for the AC100 series machines to be used in the commercial plant deployment, to provide further reliability data and to provide additional training to operators and technicians.
In late 2008, USEC will begin deployment within the demonstration facility of a cascade of 40 to 50 AC100 machines based on the initial design release. When this cascade begins operations in the spring of 2009, these AC100 machines will operate initially in a closed-loop configuration and may later be used in commercial operations. The AC100 series will be the first centrifuges used to produce enriched uranium for sale when commercial operations begin, scheduled for late 2009.