ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2026 Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
Latest Magazine Issues
Jun 2026
Jan 2026
2026
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2026
Nuclear Technology
July 2026
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
Launching into tomorrow: NRIC guides new era of research and deployment
In June 2025, the Department of Energy announced the Reactor Pilot Program, an authorization pathway that allowed reactor developers to partner with the DOE to get first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactors built and tested. Soon after, the DOE rolled out a complementary Fuel Line Pilot Program, which aimed to fast-track fuel projects. In all, 20 projects were accepted into the new programs.
Young A. Choi, Madeline Anne Feltus
Nuclear Technology | Volume 111 | Number 1 | July 1995 | Pages 115-121
Technical Note | Reactor Operation | doi.org/10.13182/NT95-A35150
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) methods are applied to boiling water reactor plant-specific emergency core cooling system probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) fault trees. The RCM is a technique that is system functionbased, for improving a preventive maintenance (PM) program, which is applied on a component basis. Many PM programs are based on time-directed maintenance tasks, while RCM methods focus on component condition-directed maintenance tasks. Stroke time test data for motor-operated valves (MOVs) are used to address three aspects concerning RCM: (a) to determine if MOV stroke time testing (as required by Section XI of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Code) was useful as a condition-directed PM task; (b) to determine and compare the plant-specific MOV failure data from a broad RCM philosophy time period compared with a PM period and, also, compared with generic industry MOV failure data; and (c) to determine the effects and impact of the plant-specific MOV failure data on core damage frequency (CDF) and system unavailabilities for these emergency systems. The MOV stroke time test data from four emergency core cooling systems [i.e., highpressure coolant injection (HPCI), reactor core isolation cooling (RCIC), low-pressure core spray (LPCS), and residual heat removal/low-pressure coolant injection (RHR/ LPCI)] were gathered from Philadelphia Electric Company’s Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station Units 2 and 3 between 1980 and 1992. The analyses showed that MOV stroke time testing was not a predictor for eminent failure and should be considered as a go/no-go test. The failure data from the broad RCM philosophy showed an improvement compared with the PMperiod failure rates in the emergency core cooling system MOVs. Also, the plant-specific MOV failure rates for both maintenance philosophies were shown to be lower than the generic industry estimates. A significant decrease in CDF was found when comparing the plant-specific data with the generic data. Only a small difference in CDF was found between plant-specific RCM data compared with PM data, which can be attributed to the few number of essential MOVs modeled in the HPCI, RCIC, RHR/LPCI, and LPCS PRA fault trees.