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What’s the most difficult question you’ve been asked as a maintenance instructor?
Blye Widmar
"Where are the prints?!"
This was the final question in an onslaught of verbal feedback, comments, and critiques I received from my students back in 2019. I had two years of instructor experience and was teaching a class that had been meticulously rehearsed in preparation for an accreditation visit. I knew the training material well and transferred that knowledge effectively enough for all the students to pass the class. As we wrapped up, I asked the students how they felt about my first big system-level class, and they did not hold back.
“Why was the exam from memory when we don’t work from memory in the plant?” “Why didn’t we refer to the vendor documents?” “Why didn’t we practice more on the mock-up?” And so on.
I. P. Serrano, J. I. Linares, A. Cantizano, B. Y. Moratilla
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 64 | Number 3 | September 2013 | Pages 483-487
DEMO and Next-Step Facilities | Proceedings of the Twentieth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (TOFE-2012) (Part 2) Nashville, Tennessee, August 27-31, 2012 | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A19139
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A domestic research program called TECNO_FUS was launched in Spain in 2009 to support technological developments related to a dual-coolant (He/Pb-Li) breeding blanket design concept. One of the goals of the project was the analysis of a suitable power conversion system with an enhanced coupling with the reactor heat sources. Each source has a different thermal level which generates many problems in the coupling.In previous works the authors have explored enhanced power cycles, taken from literature, which solve the differences in the thermal levels of the sources with combined or dual cycles. Although these cycles reach high efficiencies (between 45% and 47%) their layout is very complex and the use of steam is required.In this paper a new power conversion cycle is proposed. It avoids the use of complex layouts, being a variant of the supercritical CO2 Brayton cycle matched to the available thermal sources through an extra recuperator. The basic supercritical CO2 Brayton cycle has been also analyzed for comparison. The new cycle has been optimized so that efficiencies above 47% have been achieved.
