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Decommissioning & Environmental Sciences
The mission of the Decommissioning and Environmental Sciences (DES) Division is to promote the development and use of those skills and technologies associated with the use of nuclear energy and the optimal management and stewardship of the environment, sustainable development, decommissioning, remediation, reutilization, and long-term surveillance and maintenance of nuclear-related installations, and sites. The target audience for this effort is the membership of the Division, the Society, and the public at large.
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2024 ANS Winter Conference and Expo
November 17–21, 2024
Orlando, FL|Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld
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Nuclear new build procurement considerations
It may seem counterintuitive, but the best time to enhance the ability to support operations and maintenance for a new plant is before construction starts. This is one of many lessons learned by the currently operating nuclear fleet. As construction and startup of many nuclear facilities was completed, it quickly became evident that the ability to efficiently support operations and maintenance was limited. Most of the information necessary to establish and manage procurement of spare and replacement items, maintenance, and configuration of the facilities was unavailable and had to be gathered on a case-by-case, “on-demand” basis. Absence of necessary information and the associated challenges resulted in the need for staff augmentation and multiyear-long projects to develop equipment bills of material and maintenance programs and to perform technical evaluations for the huge quantities of spare and replacement items being requested.
Lei Yue, Chao Chen, Jiamao Li, Chengjian Xiao, Xiulong Xia, Guangming Ran, Xiaolong Fu, Jingwei Hou, Yu Gong, Heyi Wang
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 76 | Number 5 | July 2020 | Pages 680-689
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/15361055.2020.1766274
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Palladium membranes have been used for hydrogen purification for a long time due to their infinite selectivity and excellent permeation performance. However, a coexisting impurity gas, like CO, will inhibit the hydrogen permeation flux that results from the concentration polarization (CP) and competitive adsorption inhibition effects. This work aims to investigate the two inhibition effects separately and quantitatively under different temperatures and pressures. Therefore, permeation experiments of H2 (90%)/N2 (10% to 5%)/CO (0% to 5%) mixtures have been carried out at temperatures ranging from 623 to 698 K and H2 partial pressure drops from 30 to 100 kPa. The permeation of H2/N2 is used to study CP because the competitive adsorption of N2 can be ignored. Then, the further H2 flux reduction of xH2/(1-x-z)N2/zCO permeation relative to that of xH2/(1-x)N2 permeation can be attributed to the competitive adsorption of CO. The experimental results show that the CP effect would be enhanced by increasing temperature and pressure, while the CO competitive adsorption effect would be depressed. Meanwhile, the CO inhibition effect generally becomes smaller when the membrane thickness becomes thicker. Based on the results in this work, operation conditions are suggested to be at a higher temperature and higher pressure for a thicker Pd membrane in consideration of increasing the H2 permeation flux and reducing the CO adsorption effect. The experimental and calculation methods used in this work can provide a new way for investigating the inhibition effect on hydrogen permeation caused by other nonpermeable gases like CO2, Ar, or H2O.