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The deadline arrives: Checking in on the Reactor Pilot Program
On May 23, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14301, “Reforming Nuclear Reactor Testing at the DOE,” which instructed the Department of Energy to create a Reactor Pilot Program (RPP)—a new system in which companies could pursue DOE authorization to build and test their first-of-a-kind nuclear technologies. EO 14301 set an ambitious goal for that program: three reactors achieving criticality by July 4, 2026.
Lloyd G. Alexander
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 2 | Number 1 | February 1957 | Pages 73-86
doi.org/10.13182/NSE57-A15574
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The problem of transient conduction in an unclad fuel plate with negligible surface resistance was solved analytically for the case wherein simultaneous step changes are made in the volume distributed heat generation rate and the surface temperatures. The solutions for the central (maximum) fuel temperature and the space-mean temperature are presented in graphs. A solution for the case of an arbitrary number of successive step changes was obtained by superposition (example), and an approximate solution for the case of arbitrarily and continuously varying heat release rate and surface temperatures coupled to the reactivity was discussed.