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Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
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No impact from Savannah River radioactive wasps
The news is abuzz with recent news stories about four radioactive wasp nests found at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The site has been undergoing cleanup operations since the 1990s related to the production of plutonium and tritium for defense purposes during the Cold War. Cleanup activities are expected to continue into the 2060s.
N. Barbet, M. Dumas, G. Mihelich, Y. Souchet, J. B. Thomas
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 100 | Number 4 | December 1988 | Pages 435-439
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE88-A23576
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Two expert systems for on-line analysis of nuclear reactor transients are reported. During a hypothetical crisis in a nuclear facility, a team of the Institute for Protection and Nuclear Safety must assess the risk to the local population. Expert systems are intended to assist in this analysis. The first deals with the availability of the safety systems of the plant (e.g., emergency core cooling system), depending on the functional state of the support systems. A second expert system will be built to study the physical transient of the reactor (mass and energy balance, pressure, flows). To do this, as in the development of other expert systems, a physical analyzer is required. This is the aim of SEXTANT, which combines several knowledge bases concerning measurements, models, and qualitative behavior of the plant with a conjecture-refutation mechanism and a set of simplified models of the current physical state. A prototype is being assessed with integral test facility transients. Both expert systems require powerful shells for their development. SPIRAL is such a tool for the development of expert systems for the computer-aided management of complex processes.