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2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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Breaking ground on a new approach to construction
The drive to Kairos Power’s reactor demonstration site in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is not only scenic—it’s historic. Nearly 85 years ago, roughly 30,000 construction workers transformed orchards and farmland into a key Manhattan Project site. Depending on your route, you may pass by one of the three gatehouses that were once military checkpoints controlling access to Atomic Energy Commission production facilities.
Richard B. Jones and P. F. Zweifel
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 59 | Number 4 | April 1976 | Pages 429-436
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE76-A26843
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Goertzel reactor construct and the Goertzel-Wilkins theorem proved for this class of reactors are applied to a moderator fuel system at pressurized water reactor temperature and pressure conditions. The viability of the minimum critical mass as a global parameter to assess the integrity of energy group structures is investigated. The calculations are performed in diffusion and transport theory and up to eight energy groups are considered. Some initial guidelines based on the minimum critical mass for attaining nearly equivalent accuracy by using a fewer number of “properly” structured energy groups are discussed. Numerical results are still inconclusive but again suggest that transport theoretical calculations are pointless unless spectral codes that compute group constants include angular dependence.