In this study, the floor response spectra (FRS) of an auxiliary building with reinforced concrete (RC) walls in a nuclear power plant were experimentally investigated through hybrid simulation, considering the nonlinear behavior of the RC walls. Unlike shaking table testing, which requires testing the whole target building, hybrid simulation enables testing only a part of the building while analytically considering the remaining of the building. Thus, this approach maximizes the utilization of existing testing facilities, thereby enabling testing with test specimens as close in scale to full-scale target RC walls as possible. By employing a specially designed load transfer element, flexible loading beam, a three-dimensional loading condition that RC shear walls undergo during seismic events, including the in-plane, the out-of-plane, and the vertical direction, was realistically simulated in the hybrid simulation to consider its impact on the FRS, which is challenging to capture by pure analytical approaches. The hybrid simulation results clearly showed that the nonlinear behavior of the tested RC shear wall has a significant impact on the FRS of the target building, and the peak floor accelerations can be greatly amplified compared to peak ground accelerations.

Ash fusion and migration characteristics of municipal solid waste and sewage sludge co-firing in power plants

• Integrated rehabilitation does not always achieve balance in post-mining outcomes. • Cohesive governance fosters coordinated planning and legitimacy. • Spatial design enables socio-ecological transformation beyond remediation. • Remoteness and aridity steer post-mining land uses toward renewables or ecology. • Indigenous collaboration grounds rehabilitation in Country and cultural knowledge. As the global transition from coal accelerates, the concurrent decommissioning of coal mines and coal-fired power plants is generating extensive brownfields with regional socioeconomic and environmental impacts. Yet how rehabilitation of these brownfields balances regional sustainability priorities remains underexplored. This gap is particularly critical for Australia, where widespread closures are imminent. To address this gap, this study examines six European coal mine/plant case studies through a built environment disciplinary perspective rarely applied in mining engineering-led rehabilitation. Using an evaluation framework, it analyses European rehabilitation trajectories and contextual contrasts to inform Australia’s post-coal transition. The first step assesses integration, balance, and governance; the second examines their sub-components to identify strengths and weaknesses; and the third synthesises these results to distil lessons that inform targeted recommendations. Results reveal five cross-case lessons: integrated rehabilitation alone does not ensure balanced outcomes; governance structures are decisive; sustainability requires managing complex trade-offs; spatial design catalyses transformation; and long-term commitment underpins enduring success. Building on these findings, five context-specific recommendations are proposed: reform closure policy; embed spatial design in closure planning; tailor strategies to climate; address remoteness; and strengthen community and Indigenous inclusion. These timely insights are crucial for guiding Australia’s integration of policy and design knowledge to transform post-mining regions into sustainable landscapes amid the nation’s energy transition.

Radionuclides and heavy metal contamination in edible fish and shellfish from two Bay of Bengal estuaries: source apportionment and health risk assessment.

Design of a foreign object retrieval robot for the internal lower head of a nuclear power plant pressurizer

This study introduces an improved algorithm called modified Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm [Modified-GOA (M-GOA)], designed to prevent the Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm (GOA) from getting trapped in local optima. The findings demonstrate that even small modifications can significantly enhance an optimization algorithm’s performance. To evaluate M-GOA’s effectiveness, it was applied to the optimization problem of multireservoir hydropower systems under baseline conditions and two future periods, capturing a range of climate change scenarios, namely RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5. The results indicate that M-GOA outperforms both GOA and particle swarm optimization (PSO) in achieving optimal objective function values, with a significantly lower standard deviation across five operating modes. In the Seimareh single-reservoir system, M-GOA achieves 93% of the total energy production capacity, compared to 70% and 91% for GOA and PSO, respectively. Additionally, M-GOA exhibits strong performance in multireservoir systems, consistently yielding low objective function values under various conditions. The algorithm demonstrates high adaptability to diverse climatic scenarios and long-term resource planning, highlighting its flexibility and efficiency in complex optimization tasks.

Integrated geophysical-geotechnical investigation for foundation design at Al-Hilla2 gas power plant, Iraq

Wet deposition modeling and behavior analysis of 137Cs aerosols using ten observation-based continuous size distributions following the Fukushima accident.

Scalable robust transactive management of hydrogen-battery virtual power plants under explicit degradation dynamics

Dynamic characteristics and flexible control of the coal-fired power plant integrated with molten salt thermal storage system

The contributions of refined anthropogenic sources to PM2.5 air quality and health impacts in China from 2020 to 2030, and associated policy benefits.

One policy to rule them all: Handling multiple emergent accidents in nuclear power plants with ensemble-based behavior cloning

Reliability verification methods for artificial intelligence components in instrumentation and control systems at nuclear power plants

Open-set fault diagnosis method for time series data in nuclear power plants

Evidence suggests that ionizing radiation increases the risk of dementia, but data are limited for those chronically exposed to low doses (<100 millisieverts (mSv)). We addressed this gap by investigating associations between cumulative low-dose radiation exposure and dementia mortality among nuclear power plant (NPP) workers. Our study cohort comprised Canadian NPP workers monitored for radiation exposure between 1950 and 2018, with mortality follow-up extending through 2020. Dementia deaths were identified through record linkage to national mortality data and based on underlying or contributing causes of death. Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) were derived to compare mortality in the workers to the Canadian population. We used Poisson regression and fit linear excess relative risk models to describe the shape of the exposure-response relationship between cumulative radiation (lagged 10 years) and dementia mortality. Among 97,250 NPP workers, there were 1,458,299 person-years of follow-up. The mean whole-body lifetime accumulated exposure at the end of follow-up was 9.8mSv. In total, there were 235 deaths with dementia listed as the underlying cause, and 450 when the definition was expanded to include contributing causes. Relative to the Canadian population, NPP workers had a reduced mortality rate of dementia (SMR = 0.69; 95% CI: 0.63, 0.76). We found some evidence that exposure to ionizing radiation was associated with an increased risk of dementia mortality, but no statistically significant linear dose-response relationship (ERR/100mSv=0.010; 95% CI: -0.227, 0.247). Spline analyses suggested a non-linear dose-response relationship. We found modest evidence that low-dose radiation exposure is associated with increased risks of dementia mortality. These findings should be interpreted cautiously, given that they differ from those found when we modelled dementia as an incident outcome in a cohort that included many of these same workers. Taken together, our findings highlight limitations of using death data to identify etiological risk factors for dementia.

Utilizing aqua-ammonia as a clean and scalable fuel in steam power plants

Risk-averse co-optimization of virtual power plants in multi-markets considering scheduling costs and uncertainties of controllable loads

Integrated iron-chlorine electrochemical process for hydrogen sulfide removal and hydrogen production in geothermal power plants: Techno-economic and life cycle assessment

Review and data analysis of coal-fired power plant coupled with low-carbon fuel technologies

Multi-periods conditional mean spectrum for ground motion selection in seismic analysis of nuclear power plant structures