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Latest News
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.
J. E. Klein
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 41 | Number 3 | May 2002 | Pages 542-550
Analysis and Monitoring | Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tritium Science and Technology Tsukuba, Japan November 12-16, 2001 | doi.org/10.13182/FST02-A22648
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In-bed accountability (IBA), a steady-state, flowing gas calorimetric method, has been implemented for production measurement of tritium inventories in metal hydride storage beds utilizing a LaNi4.25Al0.25 metal hydride alloy. Six-point calibration curves have been completed for six, nominal 390 gram, and two nominal 1310 gram tritium metal hydride storage beds. The equations used to calculate inventory errors are derived and presented in the Appendix. Beds with the same amount of insulation gave similar IBA calibration curves and bed temperature versus tritium inventory results. Tritium IBA inventory measurement errors varied slightly with bed inventory and maximum values at the 95% confidence level ranged from 4 to 9 grams for the 390 gram beds (1.1 to 2.6%) and from 8 to 13 grams for the 1310 gram beds (0.7 to 1.2%). Comparison of other methods for determining inventories on the same beds (hydride pressure, hydride bed temperature, and hydride bed temperature rise above the glove box temperature) showed the IBA method gave the highest accuracy tritium measurements. These other inventory methods also showed greater variability in measurement error over the range of tritium inventories, van't Hoff plots of hydride bed pressure under steady-state IBA conditions revealed a reduction in hydride pressure after several months of tritium service compared to other beds without tritium exposure.
