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2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
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.
Hiroyuki Sato, Xing L. Yan, Yukio Tachibana, Kazuhiko Kunitomi, Yukitaka Kato
Nuclear Technology | Volume 185 | Number 3 | March 2014 | Pages 227-238
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT13-97
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The transient response of the high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) to depressurized loss of forced circulation combined with failure of all reactor trip systems, a beyond-design-basis accident, is analyzed for an extended period of time during which no active core cooling is resumed. The characteristic behavior of the reactor during the long-term conduction cooldown event is found to be shaped by several parameters that are usually not considered in the safety design of the HTGR. For example, while the Doppler effect is usually relied upon to provide inherent shutdown of the reactor, the reactivity coefficient of temperature of the graphite moderator is found to be a critical parameter for determining the final settling temperature of the fuel following the recriticality. Furthermore, this study finds that the peak fuel temperature reached during this event is correlated strongly even to the initial core operating temperature prior to the initiation of the transient event. These and other results of this study are expected to provide useful input to the development of enhanced safety design guidelines for commercial HTGRs in the aftermath of the Fukushima accident.