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Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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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.
R. L. Nelson, N. Parkinson, W. C. L. Kent
Nuclear Technology | Volume 53 | Number 2 | May 1981 | Pages 196-203
Technical Paper | Realistic Estimates of the Consequences of Nuclear Accident / Nuclear Fuel | doi.org/10.13182/NT81-A32624
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Future fabrication plants for breeder reactor fuel will have to be designed to more stringent personnel radiation exposure standards. Thus, it is desirable to move away from glove box operations toward fully remote operating and maintenance concepts. Experience with the manufacture of fuel for the prototype fast reactor demonstrated that processes requiring frequent and skilled adjustment are to be avoided and that the essential requirement for a remote fabrication route is that it be stable, tolerant, and readily meet product specifications. The equipment selected must be reliable and have low maintenance requirements. Maintenance is perceived as a crucial area, and concepts under consideration for future plants involve the remote removal, decontamination,and replacement of equipment modules or assemblies. A vibro-compaction technique for filling fuel pins, which consists of a single infiltration of a coarse bed of spheres with fine spheres, is considered to have high potential for upscale in a remote operation. The gel precipitation route to 800- and 80-nm spheres of (U,Pu)O2 has been shown to yield acceptable products for vibro-compaction of fuel elements to ∼80% smear density. This wet chemical route meets many of the criteria for future remote fabrication plants and a sequential development program toward a full-scale production plant is in hand.