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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.
Edmund T. Rumble, III, William E. Kastenberg
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 49 | Number 2 | October 1972 | Pages 172-187
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE72-A35505
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Several nonlinear space-time reactor models are studied by employing modal analysis. Eigenfunction modes resulting from the solution of Sturm-Liouville equations satisfying the appropriate linear portion of the neutron diffusion equation are chosen. These modes form a complete, orthogonal set and are convenient to calculate numerically. Examples where coefficients and time constants are representative of present reactor design are studied. The work is focused on space-dependent feedback and local step and ramp reactivity insertions. The large difference in the neutronic and thermal-hydraulic time constants gives rise to computational difficulties. This difficulty, characteristic of “stiff systems” was minimized by use of a rational extrapolation technique to solve the resultant equations.