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DOE, INL, Kairos talk nuclear energy at Senate committee hearing
It has been 10 months since President Trump signed several executive orders that have reshaped the nuclear energy industry and set lofty goals for initiatives like the development and deployment of new nuclear technology.
One such initiative, the DOE’s Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program, calls for at least 3 of the 11 reactors in the program to achieve criticality by July 4, 2026. Some have questioned whether this target is feasible.
W. R. Marcum, T. V. Holschuh, T. K. Howard
Nuclear Technology | Volume 190 | Number 3 | June 2015 | Pages 359-375
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT14-61
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
An exact solution for a heterogeneous, discontinuous wide beam is developed herein having three unique boundary condition (BC) sets. These BC sets were chosen based on their relevance to plate-type–fueled reactors. This solution, with respective BC sets, contributes new insights into the field of engineering mechanics as applied within the nuclear engineering discipline. Herein, the exact solution is validated under a set of test cases. A comparison is then made against other relations that have been developed to provide similar engineering insights. Last, the solution is applied toward a presently relevant engineering problem regarding the design of a monolithic plate-type fuel. The outcome of this work provides a solution form for the computation of out-of-plane deflection of a heterogeneous, discontinuous wide beam that can be easily applied in engineering mechanics and is flexible in use.