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DOE selects first companies for nuclear launch pad
The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy and the National Reactor Innovation Center have announced their first selections for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad: three companies developing microreactors and one developing fuel supply.
The four companies—Deployable Energy, General Matter, NuCube Energy, and Radiant Industries—were selected from the initial pool of Reactor Pilot Program and Fuel Line Pilot Program applicants, the two precursor programs to the launch pad.
B. Mahalakshmi, P. Mohanakrishnan
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 115 | Number 4 | December 1993 | Pages 341-347
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE93-A24064
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Investigations were performed on the ZPPR-13A critical assembly to determine the cause of the radial variation of the calculated-to-experimental (C/E) ratio for control rod worth in large heterogeneous cores. The effects of errors in cross section, mesh size, group condensation, transport, and modeling were studied by using two- and three-dimensional diffusion calculations and three-dimensional transport calculations. In that process, the cross-section set and the calculation scheme that are being used for fast reactor design in India have been revalidated. The cross-section set was found to yield satisfactory results. Three-dimensional calculations with adjusted and unadjusted cross sections confirmed that the error in cross sections was largely responsible for the radial dependence of the C/E ratios. The contributions from group condensation and mesh size errors were <2%, and from modeling errors and transport correction, <1%. The effect of these errors is insignificant when compared with the effect of the cross-section error. The analysis also showed that even without the adjustment in diffusion coefficient suggested in earlier studies, a satisfactory prediction is found, at least for this benchmark. The diffusion-to-transport correction for control rod worth was found to be -7%.