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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.
R. E. Maerker
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 96 | Number 4 | August 1987 | Pages 263-289
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE87-A16391
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A second example of applying the LEPRICON methodology to an existing pressurized water reactor is described. The present application is an analysis of ad hoc dosimetry inserted into the H. B. Robinson-2 reactor to monitor the effects on pressure vessel fluence produced by the introduction of a low-leakage fuel management scheme during cycle 9. The use of the simultaneous dosimetry at both a downcomer location and in the reactor cavity allowed a quantitative evaluation to be made by the LEPRICON procedure of the relative merits of each location. Unfolded results using the dosimetry indicate that the cumulative neutron fluence above 1 MeV originally calculated for the critical lower circumferential weld of the pressure vessel during cycle 9, 7.2 × 1017 n/cm2± 15.9%, should be adjusted upward by about one standard deviation to a value of 8.8 × 1017 n/cm2 with a reduced uncertainty of 10.9%.