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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. Ligou
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 63 | Number 1 | May 1977 | Pages 31-40
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE77-A27001
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
On the basis of a point kinetic model (adiabatic approximation), the explosion of fissionable pellets is analyzed. The needed kinetic parameters are derived from steady-state multigroup transport calculations. The effect of the reflectors is included not only in the critical mass determination but also in the kinetic behavior of the pellets through the effective lifetime. Although the hydrodynamic expansion is not considered, fuel burnup is taken into account to ascertain the time needed for maximum efficiency. This time is then compared to the disassembly time. A simple formalism is included that directly gives the microexplosion efficiency. Most of the numerical results are related to Li-D-reflected plutonium pellets. The ignition of the fission chain reactions is provided by fusion neutrons produced in the reflector, but the bootstrap mechanism between fission and fusion is not included.