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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.
Hiroshi Motoda
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 49 | Number 4 | December 1972 | Pages 515-524
Technical Notes | doi.org/10.13182/NSE72-A22573
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A nonlinear programming technique was applied to a one-dimensional multiregion slab reactor to optimize control rod programming and fuel loading pattern simultaneously. Original equations and constraints which were continuous in space and time were discretized and further linearized to use linear programming repeatedly. Numerical results were confirmed by the previously developed two-region burnup space theory. Furthermore, the more quantitative evaluation of burnup optimization and the determination of more realistic control rod programming became possible by the increased degree of control freedom.