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Division Spotlight
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.
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.”
Divya Jyoti Prakash, Youho Lee (Univ of New Mexico)
Proceedings | Advances in Thermal Hydraulics 2018 | Orlando, FL, November 11-15, 2018 | Pages 600-611
Poor resistance to thermal shock is one of the major limiting factors for ceramic materials to be used as nuclear structural materials. Most past efforts to improve thermal shock tolerance focused on increasing material strength, thermal conductivity. As much as the material aspect of thermal shock tolerance is concerned, convective heat transfer is the other critical component for thermal shock tolerance, as it determines non-uniform temperature fields leading to thermal stresses. Our approach is to achieve thermal shock tolerance by reducing surface heat flux with surface modification. We perform a systematic study of the thermal shock experienced by the alumina during quenching by cold water droplet impingement with heated surface temperature ranging from 125°C to 475°C for Weber number ?32. Degree of thermal shock is gauged from the residual strength of material post quenching. We find clear sign of thermal shock fracture for as received hydrophilic alumina due to higher heat flux during nucleate and transition boiling mode of heat transfer. Residual strength is nearly constant for surface modified alumina due to the hydrophobic nano-fractal surface that promoted film boiling mode of heat transfer, implying significant improvement in thermal shock tolerance with reduced heat flux. This is a novel approach to reduce thermal shock by controlling the heat transfer with surface modification, different from conventional, yet expensive, method of improving the bulk material properties. The presented method of improving thermal shock tolerance can be applied to various nuclear power plant components, including turbine blades.