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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Optimizing nuclear plant outages: Data analytics tools and methods for enhancing resilience and efficiency
Nuclear power plant refueling outages are among the most complex phases in a plant’s operational cycle.1 During these outages, tens of thousands of activities, including maintenance and surveillance, are conducted simultaneously within a short timeframe. Typically lasting three to four weeks, these operations involve large crews of contractors with diverse skill sets performing tasks ranging from testing and surveillance to maintenance. Outages may extend longer if major backfitting or modernization projects are planned. Consequently, plant outages are expensive, incurring significant operational costs, such as contractor labor and equipment, as well as the loss of generation while the plant is off line. This can easily cost a plant operator more than $1 million a day. Therefore, there is a constant need to mitigate the economic impact on plants by reducing the frequency, duration, and risks associated with these outages.2,3
G. N. Throumoulopoulos, G. Pantis
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 1 | July 1986 | Pages 149-153
Technical Note | Fusion Fuel Cycle | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24755
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Under the assumption of time-dependent net core breeding gain of fusion-fission symbiotic systems, analytical forms for the stockpile fuel trajectories have been derived, both for continuous and discontinuous operation. Also, usable regions for characteristic system parameters such as doubling time, minimum inventory, minimum inventory time, and minimum initial inventory have been defined. It is shown that fuel trajectories defined previously are underestimating the importance of the time dependence of the net core breeding gain.