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August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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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.
J. G. MORGAN, M. F. OSBORNE, O. SISMAN
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 14 | Number 1 | September 1962 | Pages 83-100
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE62-A26201
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Post-irradiation examinations have been completed on all but the very long burnup samples for the EGCR fuel evaluation studies. The results have confirmed the reliability of this fuel element design at least up to the burnup thus far attained (2400 Mw-day/metric ton UO2). Fission gas release was not excessive except for the very high temperature irradiations. Although the pellets did sometimes show considerable cracking, pieces did not fall into the central cavity, and the hollow cylinder pellet design was shown to be stable. In the 1600°F prototype experiments, ridges were formed in the clad at pellet interfaces and evidence of sigma phase formation and some void formation was found in the metallographic examination of the ridges. The UO2 was found to contain many fine cracks which caused the pellets to break up on handling, but very little fuel shifting occurred before the cans were cut open.