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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
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
(Prepared by P.L. Mondino, E. Bertolini)
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 1375-1385
Machine Upgrades and Next-Generation Device | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24922
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Three years have passed since the Joint European Torus (JET) started operation in June 1983. Phase I of the scientific programme, devoted to ohmic heating studies, has been completed. Phase II, devoted to additional heating studies started in January 1985. From the technical point of view JET has been entirely successful: indeed the plasma current, an important figure of merit for a tokamak, has reached 5.1 MA for 3s, (exceeding the design value of 4.8 MA). Ion Cyclotron Resonance Heating has added up to 6 MW to the plasma and Neutral Beam Injection has added up to 10 MW. The energy confinement time in ohmic discharges has reached 0.8s; but degradation has been observed with additional heating. Recently, combined heating (Padd up to 14.5 MW) allowed achievement of ion and electron temperatures of −7.5 keV at densities of ∼3 − 1019 m−3. Several proposals for improvements of the JET scientific performance are reported in the paper and summarised in the new development programme.
