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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.
Michael F. Dowling, Jason D. Wartell, Sheldon M. Jeter, Said I. Abdel-Khalik
Nuclear Technology | Volume 117 | Number 3 | March 1997 | Pages 353-365
Technical Paper | Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow | doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35349
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A capacitance-type sensor whose sensitivity is sufficiently high to detect liquid water droplets in a stream of gas with very low moisture content is described. Instantaneous capacitance is measured for a probe consisting of two closely spaced parallel plates through which a two-phase mixture is flowing; the presence of liquid within the sensor’s active volume generates a measurable capacitance increase due to the much higher dielectric constant of liquid water compared with gas or steam. Proof-of-concept experiments were carried out to determine the relative effects of droplet size, velocity, and position on the output of the sensor. The probe detected individual water droplets in the range of 7.5 to 20.0 μl and had a voltage output that was linear with droplet volume in this range. In addition, the signal pulse width was found to be a sensitive indicator of droplet velocity. The data indicate that the probe can be used to measure the moisture fraction of a high-quality gas flow in the range from 0 < β <0.013 (liquid volume/total volume) with a maximum standard deviation of ∼0.001.