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2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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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.
Ch. Hellwig, K. Bakker, T. Ozawa, M. Nakamura, F. Ingold, L. Å. Nordström, Y. Kihara
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 153 | Number 3 | July 2006 | Pages 233-244
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE06-A2609
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Particle fuels such as sphere-pac and vipac have been considered as promising fuel systems for fast reactors because of their inherent potential in remote operation, cost reduction, and incineration of minor actinides or low-decontaminated plutonium. The FUJI test addresses the questions of fabrication of mixed-oxide (MOX) particle fuels with high Pu content (20%) and its irradiation behavior during the start-up phase. Four kinds of fuel, i.e., MOX sphere-pac, MOX vipac, MOX pellet, and Np-MOX sphere-pac, have been and will be simultaneously irradiated under identical conditions in the High Flux Reactor in Petten, Netherlands. First results show that the particle fuel undergoes a substantial structure change already at the very beginning of the irradiation when the maximum power is reached. The changes in microstructure, i.e., the formation of a central void and the densification of fuel, decrease the fuel central temperature. Thus, the fast and strong restructuring helps to prevent central fuel melting at high power levels.