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September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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Latest News
Schulz Electric™ Refurbishes Critical Circulating Water Pump Motor in Only Four Days
Schulz Electric™ was contacted by a nuclear power plant in the New England region that serves a community of over 2 million homes. After five years of service, a 1500 HP, 4 kV, 24-pole circulating water pump motor (measuring approximately 7’ wide, 8’ tall, and weighing several tons) needed refurbishing while the plant was still online. To add to their concern, the power plant is located close to the ocean. The aging motor was not only approaching the end of its serviceable life, but was highly susceptible to moisture intrusion and the salt-laden air, which can build up in air passages within the motor. These environmental conditions can lead to elevated operating temperatures and corrosion developing on the rotor, stator, and shaft components. These factors combined, placed the plant at an increased risk of downtime that could have potentially led to a significant loss of revenue if they were forced into a shutdown event.
Y. Gohar, C.C. Baker, H. Attaya, M. Billone, R.C. Clemmer, P.A. Finn, A. Hassanein, C.E. Johnson, S. Majumdar, R.F. Mattas, D.L. Smith, H. Stevens, D.K. Sze, L.R. Turner
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 15 | Number 2 | March 1989 | Pages 864-870
ITER Nuclear Design | doi.org/10.13182/FST89-A39802
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A water-cooled solid-breeder blanket concept was developed for ITER. The main function of this blanket is to produce the necessary tritium for the ITER operation. Several design features are incorporated in this blanket concept to increase its attractiveness. The main features are the following: a) a multilayer concept which reduces fabrication cost; b) a simple blanket configuration which results in reliability advantages; c) a very small breeder volume is employed to reduce the tritium inventory and the blanket cost; d) a high tritium breeding ratio eliminates the need for an outside tritium supply; e) a low-pressure system decreases the required steel fraction for structural purposes; f) a low-temperature operation reduces the swelling concerns for beryllium; and g) the small fractions of structure and breeder materials used in the blanket reduce the decay heat source. It is assumed that the blanket operation at commercial power reactor conditions can be sacrificed to achieve a high tritium breeding ratio with minimum additional research and development, and minimal impact on reactor design and operation. Operating temperature limits are enforced for each material to insure a satisfactory blanket performance. In fact, the design was iterated to maximize the tritium breeding ratio and satisfy these temperature limits. The other design constraint is to permit a large increase in the neutron wall loading without exceeding the temperature limits for the different blanket materials. The blanket concept contains 1.8 cm of Li2O and 22.5 cm of beryllium both with a 0.8 density factor. The water coolant is isolated from the breeder material by several zones which reduces the tritium buildup in the water by permeation, reduces the chance for water-breeder interaction, and permits the breeder to operate at high temperature with a low temperature coolant. This improves the safety and environmental aspects of the blanket and eliminates the costly process of the tritium recovery from the water. The key features and design analyses of this blanket are summarized in this paper.a Work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Fusion Energy.
