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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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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
M. C. Carroll, G. H. Miley
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 770-775
Impurity Control | Proceedings of the Seveth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Reno, Nevada, June 15–19, 1986) | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24833
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A primarily analytical thermal analysis model is presented which allows for calculation of temperatures in fusion reactor first walls. The model utilizes input from plasma physics calculations coupling a 2-1/2 dimensional geometric analysis with a 1-dimensional heat conduction treatment to determine temperature profiles over the surface of and within the first wall. The results are primarily applicable to the steady-state operation of magnetic confinement devices such as tokamaks. Effects of wall geometry, toroidal curvature, and wall corrugation are considered in computing local power loadings from bremsstrahlung, cyclotron radiation, charged particles, and neutrons. Temperature solutions based on these loadings are developed by expanding into a MacLaurin series and utilizing the principle of superposition. A sequential calculation scheme is employed in lieu of traditional matrix methods in determining temperature distributions in composite walls. The model and corresponding solution methods are applied to three illustrative fusion reactor designs. Significant gains in accuracy are indicated over thermal analysis methods previously used.