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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.
M. T. Farmer, C. Gerardi, N. Bremer, S. Basu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 196 | Number 3 | December 2016 | Pages 461-474
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT16-43
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The reactor accidents at Fukushima Daiichi have rekindled interest in late-phase severe accident behavior involving reactor pressure vessel breach and discharge of molten core melt into the containment. Two technical issues of interest in this area are core-concrete interaction and the extent to which the core debris may be quenched and rendered coolable by top flooding. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development–sponsored Melt Coolability and Concrete Interaction programs at Argonne National Laboratory included the conduct of large-scale reactor material experiments and associated analysis with the objectives of resolving the ex-vessel debris coolability issue and addressing remaining uncertainties related to long-term two-dimensional molten core–concrete interactions under both wet and dry cavity conditions. These tests provided a broad database to support accident management planning as well as the development and validation of models and codes that can be used to extrapolate the experimental results to plant conditions. This paper provides a high-level overview of the key experimental results obtained during the program. A discussion is also provided of the technical gaps that remain in this area, several of which have arisen based on the sequence of events and operator actions during Fukushima.