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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.
Min-Nan Huang, M. M. El-Wakil
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 28 | Number 1 | April 1967 | Pages 12-19
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE67-A18662
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A visual and frictional pressure-drop study of low-pressure high-void-fraction two-phase flow has been performed in a boiling-water natural-circulation system with heat addition. Heat was added uniformly by four tubular electrical resistance elements placed parallel to the flow, simulating cylindrical nuclear fuel elements. A 6-ft vertical test channel, 1.25-in. i.d. was used. It contained six opposite pairs of observing windows permitting high-speed motion pictures of the flow to be taken at different operating conditions. Experimental two-phase pressure-drop data at various flow rates were conducted at pressures of 25, 35, and 50 psia, and steam qualities ranging from 0.7 to 7.8% corresponding to void fractions of 63 to 94.5%. Bubbly and transition from bubbly to slug flow regimes were observed. Strong pulsations, inherent in natural-circulation systems with internal heat addition, were also observed. Frictional pressure-drop data were obtained as a function of both quality and mass flow rate. Under the conditions of the investigation, no discontinuities in flow regime or frictional pressure drop were observed and the Martinelli-Nelson correlation for the friction multiplier was found to greatly underestimate the value of the multiplier. A motion-picture film of flow is available as a supplement to this paper.