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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.
Gary M. Sandquist
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 37 | Number 3 | September 1969 | Pages 443-450
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE69-A19118
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A method for determining stabilizing control functions for any first-order controllable system is presented. Examples of stabilizing feedback control are examined and corroborated for stability using the second method of Liapunov. Consideration of a general class of arbitrary degree stabilizing feedback-control functions reveals that linear feedback control produces the greatest damping. Examination of signal error and time delay in the control function shows that highly damping control can result in system oscillation. Finally the method is extended to systems of higher order and a stabilizing control function is found for the reactor-kinetic equations even with unmonitored delayed neutrons if the linear feedback-control gain is > β/l.