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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.
Tay-Jian Liu, Chien-Hsiung Lee
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 146 | Number 3 | March 2004 | Pages 274-290
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE04-A2410
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A complete scheme of scaling methods to design the reduced-height, reduced-pressure (RHRP) Institute of Nuclear Energy Research Integral System Test (IIST) facility and to specify test conditions for incident simulation was developed. In order to preserve core decay power history and coolant mass inventory during a transient, a unique power-to-mass scaling method is proposed and utilized for RHRP and full-height, full-pressure (FHFP) systems. To validate the current scaling method, three counterpart tests done at the IIST facility are compared with the FHFP tests in small-break loss-of-coolant, station blackout, and loss-of-feedwater accidents performed at the Large-Scale Test Facility (LSTF) and the BETHSY test facility. Although differences appeared in design, scaling, and operation conditions among the IIST, LSTF, and BETHSY test facilities, the important physical phenomena shown in the facilities are almost the same. The physics involved in incident transient phenomena are well measured and modeled by showing the common thermal-hydraulic behavior of key parameters and the general consistency of chronological events. The results also confirm the adequacy of power-to-mass scaling methodology.