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2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
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NNSA awards BWXT $1.5B defense fuels contract
The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration has awarded BWX Technologies a contract valued at $1.5 billion to build a Domestic Uranium Enrichment Centrifuge Experiment (DUECE) pilot plant in Tennessee in support of the administration’s efforts to build out a domestic supply of unobligated enriched uranium for defense-related nuclear fuel.
Gary Johnson (Private Consultant)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 699-710
Diverse actuation systems are an attempt to cope with unknown unknowns that may lead to common cause failure in the design of I&C safety systems in nuclear power plants. The diverse systems protect against postulated common cause failures internal to I&C safety system design, but are these really the most likely hazard? The intent of this paper is not to fully answer that question, but to begin a discussion of whether diverse actuation systems are the best way to address the unknown unknowns. Appendix 1 of this paper examines 19 severe accidents to identify the causes for safety system failures or late action that contributed to the events that resulted in significant core damage, as well as he contributions of diverse functions where such features played a role in the accidents. The paper also explores: • The role modern diverse systems might have played had they existed during the 19 events, and • Potential alternatives to diverse actuation systems.