Ideal and Optimum Cascades

Abstract

In gaseous diffusion and gas centrifuge uranium enrichment plants, separating units are connected in cascades. The stage separation factor in gaseous diffusion is close to unity, while in a gas centrifuge it is much larger. Ideal cascades for separating binary mixtures have been designed with no mixing of the species. A new concept, particularly applicable to cascades with large stage separation factors, is called the “optimum” cascade. These cascades allow mixing, but the value of the total flow as found in some cases is less than in corresponding ideal cascades. In this paper, ideal and optimum cascades are discussed and compared.

Keywords:

• Binary isotope mixture
• cascade
• ideal cascade

Notes

The research conducted led to the conclusion that ideal and optimum cascades coincide by the total flow for all values of the overall separation factor q.