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Launching into tomorrow: NRIC guides new era of research and deployment
In June 2025, the Department of Energy announced the Reactor Pilot Program, an authorization pathway that allowed reactor developers to partner with the DOE to get first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactors built and tested. Soon after, the DOE rolled out a complementary Fuel Line Pilot Program, which aimed to fast-track fuel projects. In all, 20 projects were accepted into the new programs.
G. E. Miller
Nuclear Technology | Volume 5 | Number 2 | August 1968 | Pages 68-73
Technical Paper and Note | doi.org/10.13182/NT68-A27953
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Eight hundred fifty aluminum-10 wt% plutonium alloy fuel rods containing ∼55 kg of plutonium were fabricated by an injection casting process and encapsulated in Zircaloy-2 tubing. Casting was accomplished by inserting one end of a 0.610-in.-i.d. × 42-in.-long Pyrex glass mold into the molten alloy and then evacuating the mold. The diameter of the cast rods was 0.600 in. ± 0.001 in. with an average length of 38 in. Each element contained two or more of the fuel rods, totaling 47.75 in. in length. Unheated Pyrex molds produced higher quality castings than 1) unheated mild steel molds, 2) heated Pyrex molds, or 3) heated mild steel molds. Plutonium melt homogeneity was significantly improved by changing from intermittent melt stirring to continuous melt stirring prior to casting.