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DOE selects first companies for nuclear launch pad
The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy and the National Reactor Innovation Center have announced their first selections for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad: three companies developing microreactors and one developing fuel supply.
The four companies—Deployable Energy, General Matter, NuCube Energy, and Radiant Industries—were selected from the initial pool of Reactor Pilot Program and Fuel Line Pilot Program applicants, the two precursor programs to the launch pad.
E. C. Miller, J. K. Mattingly, S. D. Clarke, C. J. Solomon, B. Dennis, A. Meldrum, S. A. Pozzi
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 176 | Number 2 | February 2014 | Pages 167-185
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE12-53
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Simulations of neutron multiplicity measurements of a highly multiplicative plutonium sphere measured with a moderated array of 3He proportional counters have consistently overpredicted the mean and variance of the measured multiplicity distribution. In contrast, identical experiments using a 252Cf source have been accurately simulated. This paper outlines a sensitivity analysis of several key parameters that could account for the overprediction in the simulation of the plutonium sphere. Parameters that were analyzed include source-detector distance, detector dead time, variations in density and volume of the plutonium, and the value of for v̅ 239Pu-induced fission. Of these parameters, the only factor that accounted for the overprediction within reasonable bounds was a change in the value of the 239Pu v̅. The sensitivity analysis showed that a small change (1.14% reduction) in the value of v̅ dramatically improved the simulated results.