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DOE OSTI2025

NRIC Annual Report FY 2025

The National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC), established in August 2019, is a national United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) program. NRIC’s mission is to partner with industry and national laboratories to bridge the gap between concept, demonstration, and commercialization of advanced nuclear technology. NRIC accomplishes this through building or enhancing existing DOE infrastructure to support testing of components and systems that are key to successfully deploying advanced nuclear technology. NRIC’s vision is that by 2028, NRIC will be partnered with industry and accelerating the demonstration and deployment of advanced nuclear technology using DOE national laboratory infrastructure and expertise. NRIC will establish four new experimental facilities and two large reactor test beds for integrated technology demonstrations and experimentation by 2028 and complete two advanced nuclear technology tests by 2030. Achieving this vision will enable urgently needed abundant and affordable clean energy both domestically and internationally. NRIC’s success will inspire our nation and the global community to embrace the promising contribution of innovative nuclear reactor technologies to the clean energy economy and re-establish the U.S. as the global leader in advanced nuclear energy. NRIC is tasked with expediting the development of advanced nuclear energy technologies by bringing together private-sector technology developers and the world-class capabilities of the DOE national laboratory system. Through this program, the U.S. private sector is given access to the physical infrastructure available at DOE national laboratories to test and demonstrate their reactor concepts. NRIC works closely with the DOE-Nuclear Energy (NE) program that grants access to technical, regulatory, and financial support for commercializing nuclear energy. NRIC builds upon these new reactor concepts and technology successes to effectively strengthen U.S. nuclear leadership.

22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

NRIC DOME Crane Trade Study and Recommendation

The National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) is a national program that was established as part of the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act (NEICA). NRIC’s mission is to accelerate the demonstration and deployment of advanced nuclear energy through its mission to inspire stakeholders and the public, empower innovators, and deliver successful outcomes through efficient coordination of partners and resources. NRIC is designed to bridge the gap between research, development, and the marketplace to help convert some of the nation’s most promising advanced nuclear reactors into commercial applications. The NRIC Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) facility, formerly known as Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR II), located at the Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is intended to allow industrial and other partners the opportunity to test Advanced Microreactors up to 20MW thermal power. The 75-ton capacity polar crane located in the EBR II facility was rendered inoperable to support planned facility demolition in 2015; small holes were flame cut in the girders; hoists and cables were removed; oil was drained from gear boxes; trolley drive, and then filled with absorbent; and the electrical and control umbilical’s were disconnected, removed and disposed. Subsequently, the decision was made to convert the EBR II facility into the DOME test bed.

21 - SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLAN↗
DOE OSTI2025

NRIC FY 2025 Collaboration Initiatives Annual Report

The National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) is a national program established by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in 2019 and led by Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Its mission is to work with industry and national laboratories to bridge the gap between concept, demonstration, and commercialization of advanced nuclear technology. NRIC works to inspire stakeholders and the public, empower innovators, and deliver successful outcomes through efficient collaboration and coordination with partners. NRIC is partnered with industry to accelerate the demonstration and deployment of advanced nuclear technology using DOE’s national laboratory infrastructure and expertise. NRIC’s vision is to establish four new experimental facilitates and two large reactor test beds for integrated technology demonstrators and experimentation by 2028 and complete two advanced nuclear technology tests by 2030.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Development of The DOME Shield Model For The NRIC Virtual Test Bed

As several advanced reactor concepts are maturing, test beds are needed to accelerate the demonstration and deployment of these advanced nuclear technologies. The National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) is building new or enhancing existing US Department of Energy infrastructure to support testing of components and systems. Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) will utilize the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) dome containment structure to host reactor demonstrations. A reactor supplemental shielding is needed so that DOME dose requirements are met. To accelerate the confirmatory analysis required for the reactor demonstration, the NRIC Virtual Test Bed (VTB) is developing a virtual model of the DOME shield that will be made available on the VTB public repository. This will allow developers to leverage advanced modeling and simulation tools to ensure their reactor demonstration concept will meet dose requirement and the limit concrete temperature in the shield during steady state and transient operation conditions. This paper presents the model developed for the DOME shield using open-source tools: MOOSE heat transfer module, Monte Carlo code OpenMC, and Cardinal to calculate the DOME shield temperature distribution during steady state

22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

STARTR: An Open-Source MARVEL model for the NRIC Virtual Test Bed [Poster]

The National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) seeks to improve the understanding of microreactor physics in industry and academia through the development of a Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation (MARVEL) reactor-based model, published on the Virtual Test Bed (VTB). To achieve this goal, the Sodium-cooled Thermal-spectrum Advanced Research Test Reactor (STARTR) model was built using publicly available MARVEL specifications where possible and approximations where applicable, and was optimized for fast runtimes for researchers to receive rapid simulation feedback. STARTR will fill a gap between stakeholder interest and available models, as the first Sodium-cooled Thermal Reactor (STR) hosted on the VTB with baseline performance sanctioned by INL. This project involved the definition of all materials used in the reactor, geometry and all reactor subcomponents, and assertion of tallies and simulation settings within OpenMC 0.13.3. This poster details a small subset of the overall reactor physics testing: the two-dimensional power peaking factors and the flux energy spectrum, as well as plots of the created geometry. Future work includes code-to-code verification between the OpenMC-based model and a separately designed MCNP 6.2-based model.

21 - SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLAN↗
DOE OSTI2025

Digital Engineering at INL & NRIC

Overview of digital engineering at the National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) and Idaho National Laboratory (INL).

42 - ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2024

National Reactor Innovation Center Annual Report

The National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC), established in August 2019, is a national United States (U.S.) Department of Energy (DOE) program. NRIC’s mission is to partner with industry and national laboratories to bridge the gap between the concept, demonstration, and commercialization of advanced nuclear technology. NRIC accomplishes this through building or enhancing existing DOE infrastructure to support the testing of components and systems that are key to successfully deploying advanced nuclear technology. NRIC works to inspire stakeholders and the public, empower innovators, and deliver successful outcomes through efficient collaboration and coordination with partners. NRIC’s vision is that by 2028, NRIC will be partnered with industry and accelerating the demonstration and deployment of advanced nuclear technology using DOE national laboratory infrastructure and expertise. NRIC will establish four new experimental facilities and two large reactor test beds for integrated technology demonstrations and experimentation by 2028 and complete two advanced nuclear technology tests by 2030. Achieving this vision will enable urgently needed abundant and affordable clean energy both domestically and internationally. NRIC’s success will inspire our nation and the global community to embrace the promising contribution of innovative nuclear reactor technologies to the clean energy economy and re-establish the U.S. as the global leader in advanced nuclear energy. NRIC is tasked with expediting the development of advanced nuclear energy technologies by bringing together private-sector technology developers and the world-class capabilities of the DOE national laboratory system. Through this program, the U.S. private sector is given access to the physical infrastructure available at DOE national laboratories to test and demonstrate their reactor concepts. NRIC works closely with the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN),; which is the DOE-Nuclear Energy (NE) program that grantings access to technical, regulatory, and financial support for commercializing nuclear energy. As observed in Figure 1, NRIC builds upon these new reactor concepts and technology successes to effectively strengthen U.S. nuclear leadership.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Evaluation of AI-enabled Digital Documented Safety Analysis

The National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) is leading a transformative initiative to accelerate advanced reactor deployment by fundamentally reimagining how nuclear safety basis documentation is developed, reviewed, and maintained. Traditional Documented Safety Analysis (DSA) processes for DOE-authorized facilities rely on static, document-centric workflows that consume significant time and resources, exemplified by recent major licensing efforts requiring hundreds of thousands of staff hours and millions of pages of documentation review. These conventional approaches create barriers to the rapid, cost-effective deployment of advanced reactors that America's future energy needs demand. NRIC's DOE Authorization Digital Transformation Project addresses these challenges through an innovative framework that integrates artificial intelligence (AI), digital engineering, and systems-based data management into a cohesive digital ecosystem. This white paper presents NRIC's methodology for evaluating AI-enabled document generation capabilities within this broader digital infrastructure, using the Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) facility as a pilot case study. The evaluation will assess an AI tool's ability to generate a Preliminary Documented Safety Analysis (PDSA) through progressive integration stages—from standalone document processing to full digital thread connectivity—while maintaining rigorous verification, validation, and regulatory acceptance standards. By establishing dynamic, traceable connections between design data and safety documentation, NRIC's approach has the potential to reduce both document development time and regulatory review cycles by as much as 50%, while simultaneously improving accuracy, consistency, and traceability. This initiative represents a critical step toward establishing reusable digital infrastructure that reactor developers can leverage to accelerate their path from concept to commercial operation, directly supporting NRIC's mission to demonstrate and deploy advanced nuclear energy technologies.

22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Preliminary Reactor Fueling Support Equipment Recommendation

The National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) is a national program that was established as part of the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act (NEICA). NRIC’s mission is to accelerate the demonstration and deployment of advanced nuclear energy through its mission to inspire stakeholders and the public, empower innovators, and deliver successful outcomes through efficient coordination of partners and resources. NRIC is designed to bridge the gap between research, development, and the marketplace to help convert some of the nation’s most promising advanced nuclear reactors into commercial applications.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Infrastructure improvements in the National Reactor Innovation Center Virtual Test Bed

The National Reactor Innovation Center’s (NRIC) mission is to support deployment of novel reactor concepts. This is achieved by providing physical and virtual spaces for building and testing various components, systems, and complete pilot plants. The Virtual Test Bed (VTB) represents the virtual counterpart to the physical test bed. The VTB is being developed in collaboration with the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program. The mission of the VTB is to accelerate the deployment and licensing of advanced reactors by leveraging state-of-the-art modeling and simulation (M&S) tools developed by the DOE NEAMS program. This is accomplished via three primary means: (1) openly hosting simulations that showcase analysis capabilities, (2) continuously testing the models hosted against code updates to avoid deprecation, and (3) filling key M&S gaps that are relevant for the physical NRIC test beds. The VTB repository consists of two sub-entities: • A documentation website detailing the models: https://mooseframework.inl.gov/virtual_test_bed • A GitHub repository that hosts the corresponding files: https://github.com/idaholab/virtual_test_bed. This paper presents the infrastructure added to the VTB in the last two fiscal years. Additional information about the VTB can be found in various publications [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8].

22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Extension of Virtual Test Bed Advanced Modeling and Simulation Capabilities for Fusion Energy

The National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) was established to accelerate the deployment of novel reactor concepts. This is achieved by providing physical and virtual spaces for building and testing reactor experiments. The Virtual Test Bed (VTB) represents the virtual counterpart to the physical test beds. It is a collaboration with the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program with the mission to accelerate the deployment of advanced reactors by facilitating the adoption of advanced modeling and simulation (M&S) tools developed by the DOE. This mission has been carried out by the VTB since 2020 by hosting and featuring dozens of advanced fission nuclear reactor models developed by national laboratories and academia. The charter of the NRIC’s definition of advanced reactors also includes fusion nuclear reactors. As the tools developed by the NEAMS program are increasingly used for modeling fusion energy devices, there is an increasing need to host fusion reactor models on the VTB repository. The VTB will be extended in 2024 to support fusion energy modeling and simulation.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

ADVANCED CONSTRUCTION TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVE (ACTI)

Advanced reactor technologies have attracted considerable financial support, catalyzing innovation in the nuclear energy landscape. These next generation reactors are designed with enhanced passive safety systems and the potential for cost reductions. As these advanced reactors approach technological maturity, their commercial success also requires focused examination and essential support. Economic assessments in the nuclear energy sector often emphasize construction costs and the risk of scheduling delays as primary contributors to deployment expenditures. Traditionally, vital elements of nuclear energy deployment including civil/structural engineering, design sophistication and automation have been either undervalued or postponed in the development cycles. Additionally, the nuclear industry’s collective experience in nuclear project execution has diminished over the past several decades due to the infrequency of new plant constructions. Hence, The National Reactor Innovation Center’s (NRIC) Advanced Construction Technology Initiative (ACTI) program aims to reduce cost overruns and schedule slippages that have plagued the construction of nuclear power plant projects. With this initiative, NRIC is facilitating the development of advanced nuclear plant construction technologies and approaches through partnerships that would provide game-changing benefits to the construction of advanced nuclear power plants.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Status of New Models Hosted on the Virtual Test Bed (VTB) in 2024

The National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) mission is to support deployment of novel reactor concepts. This is achieved by providing physical and virtual spaces for building and testing various components, systems, and complete pilot plants. The Virtual Test Bed (VTB) represents the virtual counterpart to the physical test bed. It is in development in collaboration with the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program. The mission of the VTB is to accelerate the deployment and licensing of advanced reactors by leveraging state-of-the-art modeling and simulation (M&S) tools developed by the DOE NEAMS program. This is accomplished by three primary means: (1) openly hosting simulations that showcase analysis capabilities, (2) continuously testing the models hosted against code updates to avoid deprecation, and (3) filling key M&S gaps that are relevant for the physical NRIC test beds. The VTB repository consists of two sub-entities: 1. A documentation website detailing the models (https://mooseframework.inl.gov/virtual_test_bed). 2. A GitHub repository that hosts the corresponding files (https://github.com/idaholab/virtual_test_bed). Previous documentation on the models hosted in the VTB can be found in [1,2,3,4]. These references also include additional background information on the various NEAMS codes showcased in the VTB (which is omitted here for brevity). This paper primarily provides a status update of the most recent additions to the repository.

22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

ACCELERATING MICROREACTOR DEVELOPMENT AND DEPLOYMENT THROUGH JOINT PUBLIC TEST BEDS AND PRIVATE ADVANCED REACTOR DEVELOPMENT

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has funded the National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) to accelerate the development and commercialization of small modular reactors and other advanced reactor technologies. As part of this effort NIRC is building two strategic assets at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to facilitate public-private partnerships for the development and testing of advanced nuclear microreactors and Small Modular Reactors (SMR). One will provide a safe, secure, and affordable location for High-Assay Low Enriched Uranium (HALEU) fueled reactors and a second for Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) fueled reactors. Together these testbeds fill a nuclear testing infrastructure gap. The availability of such comprehensive testing facilities at the national labs eliminates the significant financial and operational burdens associated with each developer building and licensing their own test facilities. Consequently, this approach will not only accelerate technological innovation and reduce time-to-market for advanced nuclear solutions but it also underscores the DOE's commitment to fostering an ecosystem where nuclear energy will thrive as a clean, reliable, and efficient source of power. The Demonstration of Microreactor Experiments (DOME) and Laboratory for Operations and Testing in the United States (LOTUS) have planned availability in 2026, and 2027 respectively.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Perspectives on Potential Advanced Construction Technologies for Nuclear Energy

NRIC Enables Nuclear Reactor Tests & Demonstrations Authorized by the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act (NEICA) DOE-Office of Nuclear Energy; INL Nuclear Science & Tech Partner with industry to bridge the gap between research and commercial deployment Leverage national lab expertise and infrastructure

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Overcoming Challenges to Nuclear-Maritime Applications

This report is the fifth deliverable in a series of reports set forth by the Department of Energy (DOE), led by the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS), for the research award titled “Accelerating Commercial Maritime Demonstration Projects for Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies.” The report highlights guidance to bridge the gaps between innovative nuclear technologies and their practical implementation in maritime environments. The previous reports discussed specific technical, economic and regulatory challenges that may be expected when developing and establishing advanced nuclear technologies for commercial maritime applications. This report supports the mission of the U.S. National Reactor Innovation Center (NRIC) to demonstrate projects with industry and acts as a resource for the various stakeholders associated with the development of novel applications for advanced reactors. The previous reports discuss the interest in nuclear technology applications for decarbonized energy and identify the potential demands in nuclear energy supply and price. The work in these reports supports the recently issued nuclear Executive Orders (EOs). Specifically, EO 14299, “Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security”, and EO 14300, “Ordering the Reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,” by ensuring the rapid development, deployment, and use of advanced nuclear technologies; and increasing the deployment of new nuclear reactor technologies, such as Generation III+ and IV reactors, modular reactors, and microreactors to support America leading the commercialization of affordable and abundant nuclear energy.

22 - GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗