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Conference Spotlight
2026 ANS Annual Conference
May 31–June 3, 2026
Denver, CO|Sheraton Denver
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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AI at work: Southern Nuclear’s adoption of Copilot agents drives fleet forward
Southern Nuclear is leading the charge in artificial intelligence integration, with employee-developed applications driving efficiencies in maintenance, operations, safety, and performance.
The tools span all roles within the company, with thousands of documented uses throughout the fleet, including improved maintenance efficiency, risk awareness in maintenance activities, and better-informed decision-making. The data-intensive process of preparing for and executing maintenance operations is streamlined by leveraging AI to put the right information at the fingertips for maintenance leaders, planners, schedulers, engineers, and technicians.
M. Yousif Alhaj, Alya Badawi, Hanaa H. Abou-Gabal, Nader M. A. Mohamed
Nuclear Technology | Volume 194 | Number 3 | June 2016 | Pages 314-323
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT15-78
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This research focuses on the utilization of thorium-plutonium fuel in pressurized water reactors (PWRs). The reference PWR selected in this research was the Westinghouse AP1000. Thorium-plutonium mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel assemblies partially replaced the uranium oxide fuel assemblies to reduce uranium demand. The cases studied contained 36, 48, 60, 72, and 84 thorium-plutonium MOX fuel assemblies, with the rest of the 193 fuel assemblies loaded with UO2 fuel. The core cycle length, the amount of plutonium incinerated, the amount of generated 233U in the spent fuel, and the conversion ratios were determined using MCNP6. For the different cases, safety parameters such as the power peaking factor and delayed neutron fraction (βeff) were evaluated. The study showed that using thorium-plutonium MOX can achieve good peaking power factors with delayed neutron fractions within the safety limits. Also a conversion factor of about 10% was achieved.
