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Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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NN Asks: Is the U.S. ready for nuclear construction to accelerate?
Craig Stover
Yes, but . . .
The United States is better positioned today for nuclear construction than it has been in decades. Some of that comes from the experience gained at Vogtle and V.C. Summer. I was part of the team that helped start the V.C. Summer project in 2008, and at that time we were trying to build a nuclear construction workforce from scratch. We learned a lot through that effort, and many of those lessons learned have since been studied, documented, and shared.
The nuclear industry is also benefiting from the wave of investment that started growing around 2020. Over the last five or six years, there has been a serious effort across the country to get ready for new nuclear builds. The U.S. government and the private sector are investing billions of dollars in new nuclear. Much of that work is happening before widespread commercial deployment contracts are signed. This is real, and we need to prepare.
Technical Session|Thermal Hydraulics
Friday, April 5, 2024|3:15–3:45PM EDT|Reber Room 135
Session Chair:
David Reger
Alternate Chair:
John J. Acierno
Session Organizer:
Carolina da Silva Bourdot Dutra (Penn State)
Dr. Joshua Hansel (INL) will present on Sockeye, a heat pipe analysis application based on the Multiphysics Object-Oriented Simulation Environment (MOOSE) finite element framework, specifically designed for modeling heat pipes in heat-pipe-cooled nuclear microreactors. This talk will cover Sockeye's transient heat pipe modeling capabilities, validation using data from the Michigan Single Sodium Heat Pipe (MISOH1) facility, and the importance of higher fidelity heat pipe models and accurate knowledge of internal dimensions for producing realistic transient behavior. Dr. Hansel will emphasize Sockeye's role in advancing the understanding and design of heat-pipe-cooled nuclear microreactors and discuss future development plans. *This presentation will be 30 minutes instead of 20 minutes.*
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A Sockeye Model of a Test at the Michigan Single Sodium Heat Pipe Facility
3:15–3:45PM EDT
Joshua E. Hansel (INL), Carolina da Silva B. Dutra (Penn State), Pei-Hsun Huang (Univ. Michigan), Taehwan Ahn (Univ. Michigan), Victor Petrov (Univ. Michigan)
Paper