ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jul 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2026
Nuclear Technology
July 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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.
G. Palmiotti, M. Salvatores
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 87 | Number 3 | July 1984 | Pages 333-348
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE87-333
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Integral experiments play an essential role in the reduction of design uncertainties related to liquid-metal fast breeder reactor neutronics calculations. Spectrum-dependent integral parameters, such as the critical balance, have been the subject of extensive experimental studies in the various critical facility programs of the leading fast reactor programs in view of the extrapolation of the observed results to power reactors. Space-dependent parameters, such as power distribution perturbation and control rod effects, have also been the subject of large experimental programs, but it has been more difficult to find an unambiguous, systematic approach to extrapolate to the reference power reactors with the particular purpose of defining bias factors and uncertainties to be used in design calculations. Different approaches are recalled in the case of spectrum-dependent integral parameters, and some suggestions are made to define a systematic approach for the space-dependent parameters using the existing critical facilities, i.e., reduced-size cores and limited fuel inventories.