Before a new nuclear reactor design can be constructed and operated, its safety must bedemonstrated using models that are validated with integral effects test (IET) data. However,
because scaled integral effects tests are electrically heated, they do not exhibit nuclear reactor
feedback phenomena. To replicate the nuclear transient response in electrically heated IETs,
we require simulated neutronics feedback (SNF) controllers. Such SNF controllers can then
be used to provide SNF capabilities for IET facilities such as the Compact Integral Effects
Test (CIET) at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley). However, developing
SNF controllers for IET facilities is non-trivial. To expedite development, we present the
use of Digital Twins as testbeds for iterative SNF controller development. In particular, we
use a Digital Twin of the Heater within CIET as a testbed for SNF Controller Development.
This Digital Twin with SNF Capabilty is run as an OPC-UA server and client written
almost entirely in Rust using Free and Open Source (FOSS) code. We then validate the
Digital Twin with experimental data in literature. We also verify the transfer function
simulation and Proportional, Integral and Derivative (PID) controllers written in Rust using
Scilab. Moreover, we demonstrate use of data driven surrogate models (transfer functions)
to construct SNF controllers in contrast to using the traditional Point Reactor Kinetics
Equations (PRKE) models with the hope that they can account for the effect of spatially
dependent neutron flux on reactor feedback. To construct the first surrogate models in
this work, we use transient data from a representative arbitrary Fluoride Salt Cooled High
Temperature Reactor (FHR) model constructed using OpenMC and GeN-Foam. Using the
Digital Twin as a testbed, two design iterations of the SNF controller were developed using
the data driven surrogate model. Compared to the potential development time taken in using
physical experiments, using the digital twin testbed for SNF controller development resulted
in a significant time saving. We hope that the approaches used in this dissertation can
expedite testing and reduce expenditure for licensing novel Gen IV nuclear reactor designs.