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Division Spotlight
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
Vogtle-3 shuts down for valve issue
One of the new Vogtle units in Georgia was shut down unexpectedly on Monday last week for a valve issue that has since been investigated and repaired. According to multiple local news outlets, Georgia Power reported on July 17 that Unit 3 was back in service.
Southern Company spokesperson Jacob Hawkins confirmed that Vogtle-3 went off line at 9:25 p.m. local time on July 8 “due to lowering water levels in the steam generators caused by a valve issue on one of the three main feedwater pumps.”
Ferenc Adorján, Toshio Morita
Nuclear Technology | Volume 118 | Number 3 | June 1997 | Pages 264-275
Technical Paper | Reactor Control | doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35367
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Recently, continuous power reactor core surveillance, which is based on fixed in-core detector readings, has exhibited a trend of growing significance. The fixed in-core sensors can only be replaced during shutdown periods; therefore, it is important to have reliable information on the quality of each detector in advance to be able to create an appropriate detector replacement schedule. During the operating cycle, the continuous core surveillance system should rely only on reliable measurements, and only an effective detector failure diagnosis can ensure avoiding falsified information. At the same time, most published signal validation methods are not well suited for an extensive set of fixed in-core detectors. A relatively simple, though powerful and robust, method is proposed that can be applied for both signal validation and early failure detection. The basic idea of the method is that inevitably there exist such process noise components in the detector signals that are characteristically correlated within some well-determined groups of sensors. The lack of such correlation most probably occurs due to some detector failure. When a smaller, localized subgroup of the detectors shows a decreased level of correlation with the majority, that is typically caused by some abnormal event in the technological process. In such cases the results of this method can be utilized as a target identification tool for the more sophisticated noise diagnostics methods. The method has been thoroughly tested with an extensive data set, including rhodium self-powered neutron detectors and assembly outlet thermocouple signals, which was collected throughout a complete operational cycle of a VVER-440/213-type pressurized water reactor.