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Conference Spotlight
2026 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
The progress so far: An update on the Reactor Pilot Program
It has been about three months since the Department of Energy named 10 companies for its new Reactor Pilot Program, which maps out how the DOE would meet the goal announced by executive order in May of having three reactors achieve criticality by July 4, 2026.
William C. Dawn
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 199 | Number 5 | May 2025 | Pages 725-735
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2024.2396173
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new benchmark solution has been developed to aid in the development of neutron kinetics solvers for hexagonal geometries, such as those in water-water energetic reactors. This benchmark problem is based on the two-dimensional, two-group, International Atomic Energy Agency–Hex steady-state benchmark problem. Two transient problems are presented: a ramp and a step transient. To create a benchmark-quality solution to this transient problem, a basic neutron kinetics model was added to the computer program LUPINE (Liquid metal–cooled fast reactor Utility for Physics Informed Nuclear Engineering). LUPINE solves neutron kinetics equations in general unstructured mesh. First, the LUPINE kinetics solvers are verified using the TWIGL benchmark problems. Then the methods in LUPINE are used to perform a spatiotemporal convergence analysis to ensure that the solutions are sufficiently converged. Finally, Richardson extrapolation is performed to obtain the reference solutions for these new kinetics benchmark problems.