Although nuclear reactor design is recognized as an essential skill and intellectual output of academic nuclear engineering, little attention has been paid within the discipline to the structure of the reactor design process and factors influencing design outcomes. This paper, which marks the first systematic attempt to explore the structure of the reactor design process and choices, applies methodological and theoretical tools developed within the mechanical engineering design studies field to the study of nuclear reactor design.

Academic nuclear engineering texts frequently describe reactor design as a linear-analytic process of problem decomposition and solution. This paper challenges this long-held view of reactor design to show that it is not the strictly linear-analytic exercise described in nuclear engineering textbooks. This argument is made by comparing and contrasting three views of design: those reported in the literature on design studies, those reported in academic nuclear engineering textbooks and finally, those reported by practitioner reactor designers. The empirical section of this paper that describes the approaches taken by practitioner reactor designers draws on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with designers from 27 American and 5 French contemporary reactor design projects to retrospectively construct the structure of the respective design processes. This empirical evidence reveals that the identity and expertise of the designer as well as the site of the design work bear on the structure of the design process and its outcomes. This work finds that experienced designers based in large companies are more likely to embark on design projects that improve upon previous, internally developed designs. Less experienced designers, typically based in startups are likely to inherently value novelty, with startup designs originating in university settings most likely to develop wholly novel reactor concepts. Specifically, this paper shows that designers who are able to achieve this novelty do so by reframing the purpose of the new reactor design and adopting a position of critique relative to previous designs.

This paper thus problematizes the notion of ‘expertise’ in the area of reactor design. To the extent that novelty is a valued outcome of the reactor design process, this paper shows that it is the less experienced designers who are more likely to achieve it.

Overall, these findings highlight the importance of social determinants of design outcomes, such as the site of the design activity and the expertise of the reactor designer, particularly in the early, critical stages of design, and point to the need for a richer understanding within nuclear engineering of the design process that goes beyond the long-held analytical view. A deeper understanding of these determinants of design outcomes is likely to yield valuable insights for practice, pedagogical purposes, as well as for the implementation of policies concerning research and development in the nuclear energy sector.

尽管核反应堆设计被公认为是核工程学的一项必不可少的技能和智力成果，但该学科对反应堆设计过程的结构和影响设计结果的因素却鲜有关注。本文标志着探索反应堆设计过程的结构和选择的首次系统性尝试，将机械工程设计研究领域内开发的方法和理论工具应用于核反应堆设计研究。

核工程学的学术著作经常将反应堆设计描述为问题分解和解决方案的线性分析过程。本文对这种长期以来对反应堆设计的看法提出了挑战，以表明它不是核工程教科书中描述的严格的线性分析方法。这个论点是通过比较和对比三种设计观点而得出的：设计研究文献中所报告的观点，核工程学教科书中所报告的观点，以及实践堆设计者所报告的观点。本文的实证部分描述了实践堆设计者所采用的方法，这些研究对深度，对来自27个美国和5个法国当代反应堆设计项目的设计师进行的半结构化访谈，以回顾性地构建各个设计过程的结构。这些经验证据表明，设计师的身份和专业知识以及设计工作的地点会影响设计过程的结构及其结果。这项工作发现，大型公司中经验丰富的设计师更有可能着手进行设计项目，以改进以前的内部开发设计。经验不足的设计师（通常基于初创公司）可能会固有地重视新颖性，而源自大学环境的初创公司设计最有可能发展出全新的反应堆概念。具体来说，

因此，本文对反应堆设计领域的“专业知识”概念提出了质疑。在一定程度上，新颖性是反应堆设计过程的重要成果，本文表明，经验不足的设计师更有可能实现这一目标。

总体而言，这些发现强调了设计结果的社会决定因素的重要性，例如设计活动的地点和反应堆设计者的专业知识，尤其是在设计的早期，关键阶段，并指出需要在设计过程中加深理解核工程的设计过程超出了长期以来的分析视野。对设计结果的这些决定因素的更深入了解可能会为实践，教学目的以及实施与核能研究与开发相关的政策提供有价值的见解。