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2026 Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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The progress so far: An update on the Reactor Pilot Program
It has been about three months since the Department of Energy named 10 companies for its new Reactor Pilot Program, which maps out how the DOE would meet the goal announced by executive order in May of having three reactors achieve criticality by July 4, 2026.
Richard B. Jones and P. F. Zweifel
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 59 | Number 4 | April 1976 | Pages 429-436
Technical Note | doi.org/10.13182/NSE76-A26843
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Goertzel reactor construct and the Goertzel-Wilkins theorem proved for this class of reactors are applied to a moderator fuel system at pressurized water reactor temperature and pressure conditions. The viability of the minimum critical mass as a global parameter to assess the integrity of energy group structures is investigated. The calculations are performed in diffusion and transport theory and up to eight energy groups are considered. Some initial guidelines based on the minimum critical mass for attaining nearly equivalent accuracy by using a fewer number of “properly” structured energy groups are discussed. Numerical results are still inconclusive but again suggest that transport theoretical calculations are pointless unless spectral codes that compute group constants include angular dependence.