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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.
Weishu Wang, Pengzhi Wang, Xiaojie Zheng
Nuclear Technology | Volume 211 | Number 6 | June 2025 | Pages 1185-1201
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2024.2385216
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The helical cruciform fuel rod is a new fuel design. Its advantages include a large surface area–to-volume ratio, short thermal conductivity distance, and no need for grid spacers. This new fuel rod can effectively improve the hydraulic performance of nuclear reactors. To study the performance of the helical cruciform fuel assembly, the subcooled boiling flow and heat transfer characteristics of this assembly are analyzed in the present work based on computational fluid dynamics. The results indicate that the temperature distribution of the central rod wall surface in the circumferential direction has inhomogeneity and periodicity. The fluid’s temperature and velocity distribution in the cross section are high in the center and low elsewhere, and the fuel rod’s torsional orientation is compatible with the velocity vector’s direction. The vapor volume fraction on the wall of the center rod of the fuel assembly is the highest, and the vapor volume fraction in the mainstream area is relatively low. This work provides a reference for further research on helical cruciform fuel assemblies in the thermal analysis of nuclear reactors.