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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
A. Rene Raffray, Myron A. Hoffman
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 10 | Number 3 | November 1986 | Pages 1640-1645
Solid Breeder Blanket | doi.org/10.13182/FST86-A24967
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A thermal-hydraulic design study of the proposed ESPRESSO blanket for the Tandem Mirror Fusion Reactor is presented. Two solid breeder/multiplier configurations have been selected for the study: one with natural Li2O as solid breeder and no neutron multiplier and the other with 30% enriched gamma-LiAlO2 as solid breeder and Be as multiplier. A systematic procedure has been developed which effectively reduces the number of independent parameters to two, namely the neutron first wall loading and the main flow bulk temperature rise. Their effect on the maximum multiplier and breeder temperatures and on the pumping power ratio is investigated. Maximum allowable breeder and multiplier temperature constraints limit the design choice and a design point has been obtained for each case for a given maximum allowable pumping power ratio.
