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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.
Gerald Houghton
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 11 | Number 2 | October 1961 | Pages 121-128
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE61-A28056
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Fundamental flux vectors have been obtained for the diffusion of bubbles in heated channels by considering bubble motion in a turbulent liquid as a Markoff process. These flux vectors lead to a nonlinear partial differential equation representing the void fraction, which has been linearized for the case of small void fractions and coupled to a similar partial differential equation governing heat flow into the liquid phase. The coupled differential equations are transformed into coupled integral equations which are solved to obtain axial void fraction and temperature distributions in a heated channel. The rate of vapor production at the wall and the rate constant for bubble growth have been calculated from experimental data on void fraction distributions at constant uniform flux. The model predicts the correct shape for the void fraction distribution curve as well as providing a plausible explanation of burnout phenomena in terms of the bubble slip velocity.