Join us and be a part of the Networking Roundtables being held on Friday, August 6th from 8:00AM – 9:00AM EDT. Take this time to chat with your colleagues and explore important topics to the Nuclear Power Generation community. We will have four topics for you to choose from during the 8:00AM – 8:30AM session and three topics for you to choose from during the 8:30AM – 9:00AM session. Review the topics below to see which you would like to participate in and engage with your colleagues.
Track 2: Nuclear Plant Engineering
Friday, August 6th, 8:00AM – 8:30AM, EDT
Title: Additive Manufacturing for Nuclear Plant Components
Description: The use of additive manufacturing or 3-D printing of components is a rapidly growing field. The benefits of this component manufacturing technique are enormous specially in relation to nuclear plant components. Quite often components are needed on an one off basis. As nuclear plants are aging and supply chains dwindling, it is difficult and expensive to get replacement parts that are of nuclear quality using traditional manufacturing techniques. However, there are many issues that need to be resolved before components can be “printed”. These are not only technical and quality control related, but equally important are codes and standards availability and adequacy as applicable to this technology. Are these codes and standards currently available? How are these adhered to, regulated, and enforced? There can be many such questions and they can vary in different countries. Please join us for a discussion of issues related to additive manufacturing of nuclear plant components.
Roundtable Leader: Dr. Asif Arastu
Track 5: Nuclear Fuels, Research, and Fuel Cycle
Friday, August 6th, 8:00AM – 8:30AM, EDT
Title: Advanced Fuel Manufacturing and Technologies
Description: The nuclear industry is experiencing a period of rapid development in fuel safety, performance and economics. Please join us for a discussion regarding the development of advanced fuel manufacturing and technologies, and share your thoughts on the key benefits and hurdles for an expedited roll-out of these products as desired by the industry.
Roundtable Leader: Dr. Robert Oelrich
Track 6: Nuclear Codes and Standards
Friday, August 6th, 8:00AM – 8:30AM, EDT
Title: Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) for Decision-making
Description: Nuclear Codes and Standards are part of the bedrock on which the successfully construction and operation of Nuclear Power Plants around the Word are based. Please join us for a Round Table Discussion regarding enhancements to future Nuclear Codes and Standards and provide your input on how Nuclear Codes and Standards could better serve the Nuclear Industry as a whole.
Roundtable Leader: Clayton Smith
Track 9: Verification and Validation (V&V)
Friday, August 6th, 8:00AM – 8:30AM, EDT
Title: USNRC Regulatory Guideline 1.203 (RG1.203): Is It Time for a Revision? Description: Over the last 10 or 15 years, stemming in large measure from the leadership of the ASME VVUQ Committees, remarkable advances have been made in the V&V technical approaches and protocols. Verification and Validation Uncertainty Quantification (VVUQ) Standards applicable to solid mechanics computations and computational fluid mechanics & heat transfer, are widely used and available. Standards such as these have forged a clear path for demonstrating the adequacy of calculational tools needed to perform engineering calculations that must generate solutions with low calculational uncertainty and a demonstration of high-fidelity adherence to real-world physics. The net result of these achievements is the acceptance of the recommended V&V protocols and nomenclature by multiple engineering communities. The Standards produced by the ASME VVUQ Committees are instrumental in moving the majority of V&V practitioners to a universal acceptance of the ASME nomenclature and protocols.
RG1.203, first published in 2005, encapsulates the protocols used by the nuclear community for many years prior to the publication of RG1.203: to demonstrate the adequacy of software used to generate licensing calculations for nuclear power plants (NPP). Because software used to perform NPP licensing calculations had to be declared adequate for performing such calculations over the entire time frame when NPPs were being evaluated by the USNRC since it’s creation (circa 1974), the nomenclature and V&V protocols (usually termed code assessment in the nuclear community) have evolved as needed. Consequently RG1.203 uses terminology and protocols for determining the adequacy of licensing software that are sometimes considerably different than that of the ASME VVUQ Committee.
Historically the nuclear community uses software capable of modeling the entire NPP—and this software is called systems analysis software, e.g., RELAP5, TRACE, ATHLET, CATHARE which is first-order accurate and sometimes has ill-posed formulations. However, with the advent of advanced nuclear reactors, many problems may be addressed using high-fidelity CFD software in large measure because two-phase flow is not present—even during the challenging accident scenarios.
The roundtable discussion will be centered on whether the status quo is preferrable or perhaps now is the time to move to more widely accepted code adequacy acceptance practices.
Roundtable Leaders: Drs. Richard Schultz, Yassin Hassan, and Joshua Kaiser
Track 11: Decontamination, Decommissioning, and Radioactive Waste Management
Friday, August 6th, 8:30AM – 9:00AM, EDT
Title: What does the nuclear industry need to do for the back end of nuclear power to be acceptable?
Description: The back end of the nuclear fuel cycle plays a key role to the success of nuclear-based industries. However, decommissioning and waste management have struggled in many countries due to costs, perceptions, and acceptability. Please join us for a discussion regarding the public perceptions and political acceptance of decontamination, decommissioning, and radioactive waste management concepts and practices from various states, countries, and stakeholder vantages as represented by the track’s participants.
Roundtable Leader: Anthony Hechanova
Track 13: Risk Informed Management and Regulation
Friday, August 6th, 8:30AM – 9:00AM, EDT
Title: Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) for Decision-making
Description: PRA continues to be relevant for operational and maintenance decision-making for existing plants as well as in the design of advanced reactors. Please join us for a Round Table Discussion regarding bottlenecks in existing methodologies and share your thoughts on integrating PRA and prognostics for next generation power plants towards data-driven, risk-informed decision-making.
Roundtable Leader: Arun Veeramany
Track 14: Student Paper Competition
Friday, August 6th, 8:30AM – 9:00AM, EDT
Title: Career as Young Nuclear Professional
Description: The nuclear industry is now poised to expand with new fleet of advanced reactor, small modular reactors potential construction, technology development to compliment with renewable and for economic competitiveness. Beside power industry nuclear has wide ranges of applications with benefits to society and industry. This opens up exciting opportunities for upcoming young nuclear professionals. Please join us for a Round Table Discussion regarding the recent advances in technology, industry, and opportunity for growth and share your thoughts on the career of nuclear young professionals.
Roundtable Leaders: Shripad Revankar and Jovica Riznic