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AGA: Arbeitsgruppe Physik und Abrüstung

AGA 8: Nuclear Prolfieration

AGA 8.1: Talk

Friday, March 14, 2025, 11:00–11:30, HS HISKP

Weapon Usability of High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) — •Christopher Fichtlscherer — IFSH Hamburg, Germany — RWTH Aachen, Germany

Advanced nuclear reactor designs frequently explore using High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) fuels. While current civilian power reactors use uranium fuels enriched up to 5% U-235, HALEU can contain up to 20%. Still falling into the category of low-enriched uranium (LEU), HALEU requires safeguards activities similar to typical reactor fuel, assuming that the material is not at all usable in nuclear weapons. In parallel to the increased interest in HALEU fuel deployment, a debate has recently started questioning that assumption. Kemp et al. claim in a 2024 published Science article “that quantities ranging from several hundred kilograms to about 1000 kg of 19.75% HALEU could produce explosive yields similar to or greater than that of the 15 kilotons of TNT equivalent bomb that the United States dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of World War II.” The authors assert that their yield assumptions are based on the Serber-Bethe-Feynman formula; however, they do not provide any details about assumptions or calculations to support this claim. This presentation contributes to that debate by examining the weapon-usability of HALEU at different enrichment levels in detailed calculations relying only on publicly available information.

Keywords: High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU); Weapon-Usability