What's new

Iran plans to build submarines equipped with nuclear propulsion systems

How much 60% enriched uranium would be needed to fuel a nuclear sub typically?

depending how many fuel rod used in reactor ( the size of reactor core and Calandria)
and each rod takes between 100 to 200 pellet (12-g per one pellet),
so if the is first generation restore design with single fuel rod on in each
and Calandria has about 180 fuel channel
and with bit of waste in conversion and process of Uranium to pellet

i would say 300 to 400 KG


this is all based on first generation simple reactor otherwise we need PWR fuel bundle totally different calculation
 
Last edited:
How much 60% enriched uranium would be needed to fuel a nuclear sub typically?

The importance of building nuclear submarines literally cannot be stressed enough. Deployment of nuclear subs to the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Arabian Sea, and Indian ocean is so crucial to military deterrence
Obviously you have to take displacement, operational lifetime, and design of the naval reactor into account, but assuming that Iran goes for a small reactor, like a 40MW reactor, with an operational lifetime of 40 years, about 700 kilograms to 1 ton of 60% enriched uranium should be a realistic ballpark.
 
Obviously you have to take displacement, operational lifetime, and design of the naval reactor into account, but assuming that Iran goes for a small reactor, like a 40MW reactor, with an operational lifetime of 40 years, about 700 kilograms to 1 ton of 60% enriched uranium should be a realistic ballpark.

So at this production rate, we are no where near the target. Production would have to significantly ramp up which would sound alarm bells in the west.
 
So at this production rate, we are no where near the target. Production would have to significantly ramp up which would sound alarm bells in the west.
Indeed. We're not going to be anywhere near that number in foreseeable future. I don't know if we have enough uranium mined for that. We'll need over 80 tonnes of natural uranium and over 100,000 SWU to enrich it in approximately one year. At the current pace, it will take us decades. And as long as we're negotiating over our nuclear program with the west, there's no way we could get even close to such numbers.
 

Latest posts

Pakistan Defence Latest Posts

Back
Top Bottom