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Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
Standards Program
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AI at work: Southern Nuclear’s adoption of Copilot agents drives fleet forward
Southern Nuclear is leading the charge in artificial intelligence integration, with employee-developed applications driving efficiencies in maintenance, operations, safety, and performance.
The tools span all roles within the company, with thousands of documented uses throughout the fleet, including improved maintenance efficiency, risk awareness in maintenance activities, and better-informed decision-making. The data-intensive process of preparing for and executing maintenance operations is streamlined by leveraging AI to put the right information at the fingertips for maintenance leaders, planners, schedulers, engineers, and technicians.
Technical Session|Sponsored by IRD
Monday, June 12, 2023|3:15–5:00PM EDT|Marriott 9
Session Chair:
Brenden J. Heidrich
Session Organizer:
Alternate Chair:
Lei R. Cao
The DRIFT series of experiments at Idaho National Laboratory’s TREAT transient testing facility explored pellet cracking behavior in ceramic UO2 fuel pellets at LWR-relevant conditions to create data to support modeling and simulation of fuel performance. This session will march through the irradiation testing process to highlight the steps required to turn a hypothesis into an irradiation test that can produce usable data. The DRIFT-UO2 experiment at TREAT is based on the IRP-16-10905 - Heng Ben (PITT), Mary Lou Dunzig-Gougar (ISU), “Transient Reactor (TREAT) Experiments to Validate MBM Fuel Performance Simulations” https://neup.inl.gov/SiteAssets/FY%202016%20Abstracts/IRP/IRP-16-10905_TechnicalAbstract_2016CFAAbstract10905.pdf Benjamin Spencer, et al., “Dry in-pile fracture test (DRIFT) for separate-effects validation of ceramic fuel fracture models,” Journal of Nuclear Materials, 568 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnucmat.2022.153816
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Structure and Process of Managing the UO2 Dry In-Pile Fracture Test Irradiation Experiment
3:15–3:35PM EDT
Leigh A. Astle (INL), Trevor J. Smuin (INL)
Paper
Neutronics Programmatic and Safety Evaluation of the DRIFT Experiment in TREAT
3:35–3:55PM EDT
Connie M. Hill (INL)
Research Objectives and Findings from the DRIFT Experiments
3:55–4:15PM EDT
Benjamin Spencer (INL), Nicolas E. Woolstenhulme (INL), Jason L. Schulthess (INL), Austin D. Fleming (INL)
Experiment Safety Analysis Process for the DRIFT Irradiation Experiment at TREAT
4:15–4:35PM EDT
Sterling S. Morrill (INL)
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