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Division Spotlight
Robotics & Remote Systems
The Mission of the Robotics and Remote Systems Division is to promote the development and application of immersive simulation, robotics, and remote systems for hazardous environments for the purpose of reducing hazardous exposure to individuals, reducing environmental hazards and reducing the cost of performing work.
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.”
James A. Smith, Vivek Agarwal, Ahmad Al Rashdan (INL)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 1667-1671
Data analytics should be at the center of strategic maintenance decision making. The diversity and quality of data collected provides key intuition that drives effective decisions on complicated topics. Online condition monitoring is used to reduce time based preventive maintenance and to enable predictive maintenance. Effective interpretation of data leads to information that plant operators can turn into decisions and actions that improve operations and maintenance activities. Data analytics is the primary technique used to facilitate effective data interpretation that will generate revolutionary results. The starting point is the data. Patterns in the data are noted and observed. The patterns observed while the plant is operating under preset conditions define process states. These patterns are mathematically manipulated to highlight changes when process changes are detected. The methods that detect state changes usually rely on correlation algorithms. Statistics are used to determine if the changes in the patterns are real or caused by plant noise and uncertainty levels. Integrated tools are used to implement algorithms that form the data analytics process and automate the decision making. Operations research is necessary to understand the operational context of the data. Machine learning algorithms provide dynamic mathematical means that can understand the present state and predict the next state with a degree of certainty. It is this prediction and the associated prediction certainty that allows plant operators to make effective decisions. This paper will discuss the approach to build a roadmap that will migrate data analytic techniques into production facilities.