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Conference Spotlight
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
B. J. Micklich
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 1477-1482
Fusion Nucleonic | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24942
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Neutron albedo methods can be used to simplify transport calculations in a wide variety of applications. Their utilization requires a collection of albedo data and a model which makes these results convenient for hand or machine computation. Results are presented here from neutron albedo calculations for incident intermediate-energy neutrons. These results can be explained using our knowledge of neutron interaction physics. Total albedos are directly related to the cross sections for elastic scatter and absorption. Angular distributions of reflected neutrons are approximately cosθr for all incident neutron conditions. The total albedo results are well modeled by an extension of a previously developed fast-neutron albedo model when ∑abs/∑t (the ratio of absorption to total cross section) is small.
