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Conference on Nuclear Training and Education: A Biennial International Forum (CONTE 2025)
February 3–6, 2025
Amelia Island, FL|Omni Amelia Island Resort
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A series of firsts delivers new Plant Vogtle units
Southern Nuclear was first when no one wanted to be.
The nuclear subsidiary of the century-old utility Southern Company, based in Atlanta, Ga., joined a pack of nuclear companies in the early 2000s—during what was then dubbed a “nuclear renaissance”—bullish on plans for new large nuclear facilities and adding thousands of new carbon-free megawatts to the grid.
In 2008, Southern Nuclear applied for a combined construction and operating license (COL), positioning the company to receive the first such license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2012. Also in 2008, Southern became the first U.S. company to sign an engineering, procurement, and construction contract for a Generation III+ reactor. Southern chose Westinghouse’s AP1000 pressurized water reactor, which was certified by the NRC in December 2011.
Fast forward a dozen years—which saw dozens of setbacks and hundreds of successes—and Southern Nuclear and its stakeholders celebrated the completion of Vogtle Units 3 and 4: the first new commercial nuclear power construction project completed in the U.S. in more than 30 years.
Akash Tondon, Mohinder Singh, B. S. Sandhu, Bhajan Singh
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 193 | Number 11 | November 2019 | Pages 1265-1275
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2019.1614802
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The voxel, defined as the volume of the intersection between incident (primary) and scattered beams, plays an important role in the localization of defects in samples having several interests. In this work, the gamma rays emitted from a 137Cs radioactive source (having the strength of 222 GBq) are scattered from various regions of a wood sample. The scattered gamma flux is detected by an NaI(Tl) scintillation detector placed at 110 deg to the primary gamma-ray beam. Defect (decay) in the wood is simulated by drilling two collinear cylindrical flaws (having diameters of 0.8 and 1.2 cm) in the wood sample and then filling it with a mixture of sawdust and glue. Three sets of collimators with diameters of 6, 7, and 8 mm for the source and detector are used to vary the voxel size (volume). It has been found that better contrast (29.43% for a 1.2-cm defect and 16.37% for an 0.8-cm defect) is achieved for the smallest voxel (16.13 cm3) in comparison to the other two voxels (25.65 and 38.36 cm3). Further, better contrast for the smallest voxel is confirmed by comparing gray images obtained using MATLAB for all three voxel sizes at different scan positions. It has been concluded that for a given experimental setup, the accuracy of defect (decay) detection demands reduced voxel size.