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.
Mary E. Ward, John C. Lee
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 95 | Number 1 | January 1987 | Pages 47-59
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE87-A20431
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A singular perturbation method for the analysis of large power oscillations in nuclear reactors is applied to obtain phase-plane solutions of the Ergen- Weinberg model. The system equations, recast in an appropriate form, directly give a first approximation to the closed trajectory in which the system behavior is idealized as relaxation oscillations. Further approximations in the phase plane are determined using separate perturbation series on individual parts of the oscillation, with variations in the assignment of dependent and independent variables to consistently obtain convergent series. The accuracy of each order of the phase-plane solution increases with the magnitude of the power pulse in the actual physical situation. For realistic reactor conditions, both the trajectory and period of oscillation are well predicted using the first two terms of each perturbation series.