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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.
J. Barclay Andrews, II, K. F. Hansen
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 31 | Number 2 | February 1968 | Pages 304-313
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE68-A18242
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A numerical method for the solution of the time-dependent multigroup diffusion equations is presented. The method has the property that it is numerically unconditionally stable for all changes in reactor properties and all integration time-step sizes. The method assumes that the neutron flux and precursor concentration can be expressed as an exponential function over each time step. As a result of this assumption, and the factoring of the matrix form of the multigroup equations, it is shown that for the case of a constant step change in the properties of the system the asymptotic numerical eigensolution is proportional to the asymptotic eigensolution of the differential equations. An analysis of the truncation error associated with the method is also presented. Finally, a number of numerical experiments are presented which illustrate the accuracy, speed, and general utility of the method.