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What’s the most difficult question you’ve been asked as a maintenance instructor?
Blye Widmar
"Where are the prints?!"
This was the final question in an onslaught of verbal feedback, comments, and critiques I received from my students back in 2019. I had two years of instructor experience and was teaching a class that had been meticulously rehearsed in preparation for an accreditation visit. I knew the training material well and transferred that knowledge effectively enough for all the students to pass the class. As we wrapped up, I asked the students how they felt about my first big system-level class, and they did not hold back.
“Why was the exam from memory when we don’t work from memory in the plant?” “Why didn’t we refer to the vendor documents?” “Why didn’t we practice more on the mock-up?” And so on.
Vladimir Kogan, Philip M. Schumacher
Nuclear Technology | Volume 161 | Number 2 | February 2008 | Pages 190-202
Technical Note | Miscellaneous | doi.org/10.13182/NT08-A3922
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper summarizes the results of an independent review of information from the available literature on plutonium release parameters obtained in worldwide studies on accidental fires that might occur in nuclear facilities and generates technically justifiable recommendations on plutonium releases based on this review. This work was limited to the accidental fires in nuclear facilities involving plutonium-contaminated waste materials that can be in either solid or liquid form, as well as involving plutonium metal itself. Releases of plutonium are expressed in terms of the airborne release fraction (ARF), defined as the total fraction of initial material released in the accident, or the airborne release rate, which is the average rate at which ARF is released for the duration of the accident. Respirable fraction of the mass of plutonium dispersed in the air is conditionally assumed to include particles having aerodynamic diameters smaller than 10 m (aerodynamic diameter of a particle is defined as the diameter of a unit density sphere having the same aerodynamic properties as the particle; particles of any shape or density will have the same aerodynamic diameter if their settling velocity is the same). For intense fires in solid waste storage areas or large explosions associated with plutonium metal, up to 50% of the plutonium contamination may be released as respirable aerosol.