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Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Shifting the paradigm of supply chain
Chad Wolf
When I began my nuclear career, I was coached up in the nuclear energy culture of the day to “run silent, run deep,” a mindset rooted in the U.S. Navy’s submarine philosophy. That was the norm—until Fukushima.
The nuclear renaissance that many had envisioned hit a wall. The focus shifted from expansion to survival. Many utility communications efforts pivoted from silence to broadcast, showcasing nuclear energy’s elegance and reliability. Nevertheless, despite being clean baseload 24/7 power that delivered a 90 percent capacity factor or higher, nuclear energy was painted as risky and expensive (alongside energy policies and incentives that favored renewables).
Economics became a driving force threatening to shutter nuclear power. The Delivering the Nuclear Promise initiative launched in 2015 challenged the industry to sustain high performance yet cut costs by up to 30 percent.
Luiz Rogério Araujo de Araujo, Aquilino Senra Martinez, Roberto Schirru, Renato Kahn
Nuclear Technology | Volume 82 | Number 3 | September 1988 | Pages 324-329
Technical Paper | Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow | doi.org/10.13182/NT88-A34133
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A computerized system that assists pressurized water reactor (PWR) nuclear plant operators in controlling the saturation margin is described. This system continuously calculates and provides the temperature or pressure margin from saturation, and indicates the temperature and pressure values used for its calculation. The reactor core heatup and cooldown rates are also continuously provided by this computer-based system. The saturation curve is represented by a polynomial approximation as a function of temperature or pressure. Twenty-one analog signals of a PWR power plant are acquired by the system for calculating the margin and temperature variation rates. The man/machine interface is done through the visualization panel, which displays the above-mentioned values. Compared to the temperature and pressure values displayed in the visualization panel, the error of margin is always <0.5%.