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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.
R. A. Karam
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 37 | Number 2 | August 1969 | Pages 192-197
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE69-A20678
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An experimental method for the determination of the normalization integral (denominator of perturbation expression) has been developed and used in three fast assemblies. The procedure consists of measuring the apparent reactivity associated with a calibrated 252Cf neutron source at a known power level. The method is independent of the geometrical configuration of the nuclear reactor. Additionally the spatial distributions of the importance of fission neutrons were measured by observing the rate of the linear increase of the neutron population due to the 252Cf source as a function of position in each fast assembly. The measured values of the normalization integrals (N.I.) as well as the measured distribution of were higher than those obtained with multigroup calculations.