Numerical Analysis of Stable Tellurium Isotope Separation in the Square Cascade

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

Nuclear Fuel Cycle Research School, Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

In this article, the modeling of a square cascade with a gas centrifuge for the separation of multicomponent isotopes has been discussed. In this regard, a calculation code has been developed in MATLAB software. Maximizing the value of the product recovery coefficient during one year of using the cascade by considering the maximum concentration of the desired isotope in the product stream (99.9%) as the objective function has been evaluated and studied. In this code, cascade feed flow rate, machine feed flow rate, cascade cut, feed point, and cut of stage are defined as optimization variables for several simultaneous steps. The results show that the D function will be a suitable tool to determine the number of stages in the cascade, and in this way, the computational cost and the time spent to determine the structure of the square cascade will be greatly reduced. Assuming that a centrifuge machine with a separation factor α0=2.506×f-0.229 is used in a square chain to separate the third isotope of tellurium from among 8 isotopes of natural feed, it is suggested to use the D function of the cascade with 50 stages. Based on the optimization calculations, the recovery rate for the chain with 50 stages will be 86.5%, which is 85.3% for the cascade with 40 stages, and this is a confirmation for choosing the right method and using the D function.

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Journal of Modeling in Engineering

Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 17 May 2026

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History

  • Receive Date: 12 March 2025
  • Revise Date: 20 December 2025
  • Accept Date: 29 December 2025

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