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May 31–June 3, 2026
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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.
Constantinos Syros,* Claudio Ronchi, Cinzia Spanó
Nuclear Technology | Volume 94 | Number 2 | May 1991 | Pages 213-227
Technical Paper | Advances in Reactor Accident Consequence Assessment / Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT91-A34543
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A semianalytical nonlinear model is described for the calculation of the burst release and release rate of volatile fission product (VFP) from a fuel pellet under steady-state and transient reactor conditions as well as the radial density distribution in the open porosity. The density of the VFP in the porosity channels is assumed to be c(r, t) = φ(r)exp[—LT(r)ω(t)] + Λ-1(t), where L is an analytical function of parameters characterizing the physics and the geometry of the pellet; φ(r) rigorously satisfies the required boundary conditions; and ω(t), the solution of a highly nonlinear differential equation, is a time function (“kinetic time”) that represents the evolution of the density profile. The constant Λ is suitably calculated with the zeroes of the Bessel function Jo(x). The density c(r, t) of the VFP in the open porosity of the pellet is used to find the pressure p(r, t) in the open pores. The integration procedure of the transport equation for different initial and boundary conditions is described. Calculation experiments are presented and discussed.