Nuclear criticality safety modeling of an LEU deposit

The construction of the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant (now known as the K-25 Site) began during World War H and eventually consisted of five major process buildings: K-25, K-27, K-29, K-31, and K-33. The plant took natural (0.711% {sup 231}U) uranium as feed and processed it into both low-enriched uranium (LEU) and high-enriched uranium (HEU) with concentrations up to {approximately}93% {sup 231}U. The K-25 and K-27 buildings were shut down in 1964, but the rest of the plant produced LEU until 1985. During operation, inleakage of humid air into process piping and equipment caused reactions with gaseous uranium hexafluoride (UF{sub 6}) that produced nonvolatile uranyl fluoride (UO{sub 2}F{sub 2}) deposits. As part of shutdown, most of the uranium was evacuated as volatile UF{sub 6}. The UO{sub 2}F{sub 2} deposits remained. The U.S. Department of Energy has mitiated a program to unprove nuclear criticality safety by removing the larger enriched uranium deposits