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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.
W. G. Winn, P. B. Parks, N. P. Baumann, C. E. Jewell
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 65 | Number 2 | February 1978 | Pages 254-272
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE78-A27155
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Unsymmetric perturbations were introduced into the core of a large, critical, heavy-water-moderated, multiregional reactor. The resulting three-dimensional changes in flux level and shape with time were measured. Perturbations included: 1. Free-fall insertion of rods near the reactor center. Each rod contained 235U slugs in the bottom half and lithium slugs in the top half 2. Free-fall insertion of rods into an off-center radial position. Each rod contained 235U slugs in the bottom half and aluminum in the top half. 3. Withdrawal of cadmium control rods from the central 20% of the reactor core. Flux tilts calculated with the TRIMHX code were within 5% of measured flux tilts. TRIMHX provides a three-dimensional (hex-z geometry) solution of the few-group neutron diffusion and delayed precursor equations without feedback. Inputs to the calculations are available in sufficient detail to allow other methods of solution to be tested.