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NRC unveils Part 53 final rule
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has finalized its new regulatory framework for advanced reactors that officials believe will accelerate, simplify, and reduce burdens in the new reactor licensing process.
The final rule arrives more than a year ahead of an end-of-2027 deadline set in the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA), the 2019 law that formally directed the NRC to develop a new, technology-inclusive regulatory approach. The resulting rule—10 CFR Part 53, “Risk-Informed, Technology-Inclusive Regulatory Framework for Advanced Reactors”—is commonly referred to as Part 53.
Alan Hesu, Sungmin Kim, Fan Zhang
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 199 | Number 8 | August 2025 | Pages 1292-1309
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2023.2239635
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Current preventative maintenance paradigms in nuclear power plants carry several costly risks and challenges associated with component downtime and the need for human data collection. Preventative maintenance may be enabled by an online monitoring system that accurately assesses component condition and identifies potential faults. We present an approach for autonomous online monitoring and multiagent planning for robotic data collection. Under the occurrence of a fault, we utilize a machine learning model to form an initial guess of its nature, which we then refine by selectively measuring certain variables to gain additional information via a situation-aware variable selection model. To generate a multi-robot plan to conduct these measurements, we develop a preference-based planning framework within a linear temporal logic–based planning approach that prioritizes collecting data from the most important features. Finally, we demonstrate our approach on a case study using a simulated nuclear power plant circulating water system, showing fault diagnostic performance as well as simulated robot data collection.