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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
William P. Duggan, Don Stelner , Mark J. Embrechts
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 890-895
Innovative Concepts for Power Conversion | Proceedings of the Seveth Topical Meeting on the Technology of Fusion Energy (Reno, Nevada, June 15–19, 1986) | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24849
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A design of a compact fusion reactor is proposed based on the reversed field pinch and utilizing the "Integrated-Blanket-CoiI" (IBC) concept. The IBC is applied to the toroidal field and divertor systems, with liquid metal used for cooling both the first wall and blanket. This simplifies the overall design by requiring only a single coolant cycle. In addition, safety is increased by eliminating any possible lithium-water interaction in the fusion power core. Finally, replacing conventional copper divertor coils with IBC components enhances tritium breeding and energy recovery. A generic problem with liquid metal coolants is their reduced heat transfer capabilities in magnetic fields. In this context, the use of liquid metal coolants may limit the allowable neutron wall loading to a value of 10 MW/m2. Above this value it may be necessary to use water cooling for the first wall and divertor surfaces.
