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AI at work: Southern Nuclear’s adoption of Copilot agents drives fleet forward
Southern Nuclear is leading the charge in artificial intelligence integration, with employee-developed applications driving efficiencies in maintenance, operations, safety, and performance.
The tools span all roles within the company, with thousands of documented uses throughout the fleet, including improved maintenance efficiency, risk awareness in maintenance activities, and better-informed decision-making. The data-intensive process of preparing for and executing maintenance operations is streamlined by leveraging AI to put the right information at the fingertips for maintenance leaders, planners, schedulers, engineers, and technicians.
Emerson Paul Chivington, William E. Kastenberg
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 83 | Number 3 | March 1983 | Pages 350-365
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE83-A17568
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A technique is developed for the treatment of space-time neutron kinetics, which can include the effects of material motion. The new method is applied to sample problems where azimuthal fuel motion is postulated to occur. The technique developed employs the finite element method, Gear's variable predictor corrector scheme, and a Lagrangian mesh that moves with the reactor materials. We treat a cylindrical reactor in (r,θ) geometry. Because finite elements are used to describe both the fluxes and the boundaries of the mesh elements, the resulting deformed elements could be arbitrarily shaped. Second-order polynomials (elements) were found to be better than linear polynomials in treating the geometry because of the curved boundaries used in the problem. Azimuthal motion was found to increase reactivity, and large motion resulted in large increases in reactor power for the cases studied. However, the cases studied showed that azimuthal motion was less important than both inward and outward radial motion. Point kinetics (based on first-order perturbation theory) did not accurately predict the power excursion in cases where substantial azimuthal displacement occurred.