Westinghouse Electric Corporation Research Articles

Benchmark Analysis on Loss-of-Flow-without-Scram Test of FFTF Using Refined SAC-3D Models

The Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) is a liquid sodium-cooled nuclear reactor designed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation for the U.S. Department of Energy. In July 1986, a series of unprotected transients were performed to demonstrate the passive safety of FFTF. Among these, a total of 13 loss-of-flow-without scram (LOFWOS) tests were conducted to confirm the liquid metal reactor safety margins, provide data for computer code validation, and demonstrate the inherent and passive safety benefits of specific design features. In our preliminary work, we have performed relatively coarse modeling of the FFTF. To better predict the transient behavior of FFTF LOFWOS test #13, we modeled it using a more refined thermal-hydraulics model. In this paper, we simulate FFTF LOFWOS test #13 with the system safety analysis code SAC-3D according to the benchmark specifications provided by Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). The simulation range includes the primary and secondary circuits. The reactor core was modeled by the built-in 3D neutronics calculation module and the parallel-channel thermal-hydraulics calculation module. To better predict the reactivity feedback introduced by coolant level variations within the GEMs, a real-time macro cross-section homogenization processing module was developed. The steady-state power distribution was calculated as the transient simulation initial boundary conditions. In general, both the steady-state calculation results and the whole-plant transient behavior predictions are in good agreement with the measured data. The relatively large deviations in transient simulation occur in the outlet temperature predictions of the PIOTA in row 6. It can be preliminarily explained by the reason for neglecting the heat transfer between channels in this model.

Thermal-hydraulic transient analysis of the FFTF LOFWOS Test #13

In the framework of a Coordinate Research Project (CRP) endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Department of Astronautical, Electrical and Energy Engineering (DIAEE) of Sapienza University of Rome has developed a thermal–hydraulic model of the Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF). FFTF was a Sodium-cooled Fast Reactor (SFR) developed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation for the U.S. Department of Energy, which operated from 1980 to 1992. The main mission of the reactor was to prove feasibility and operation of SFR nuclear power plants. For this purpose, FFTF was designed as a flexible system and extensively instrumented, making it attractive for code validation purposes. The proposed benchmark exercise involves a Loss Of Flow Without Scram (LOFWOS) test, performed in 1986. DIAEE has developed and is validating a multiphysics modelling based on a Neutron-Kinetic/Thermal-Hydraulic (NK/TH) coupling approach with RELAP5-3D© and PHISICS codes. The present paper deals with the assessment of the standalone TH modelling, establishing the basis for the next NK/TH phase. Steady-state results have been compared with benchmark specifications, proving the adequacy of the model calibration. After that, the comparison between transient simulation and experimental data has highlighted an overall good agreement, demonstrating the capability of the developed TH nodalization to reproduce the FFTF LOFWOS Test #13. Outside of the parameters selected for the comparison in the benchmark exercise, outlet plenum thermal stratification and sodium free surface motion within Gas Expansion Modules (GEM) have been analysed, providing useful outcomes for the understanding of the transient event and for future perspectives.

The Dismantling of Westinghouse [History

In the late 1970s, hundreds of young engineers graduating from universities in many countries across the world started their professional careers working for Westinghouse Electric Corporation. The author of this article began his career at Westinghouse upon receiving his bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering. Back in those days, Westinghouse was one of the world's premier electrical businesses, a global innovator and manufacturer of electrical power systems, radar, nuclear energy and many others. Today, the company no longer exists. This article tells the story of what happened and offers insight on why it did.

Westinghouse EMACK Railgun

Westinghouse Electric Corporation was the early leader in railgun technology in the 1980s and developed the 16 to 30 MJ stored energy homopolar-generator (HPG) powered system, EMACK, which provided the highest muzzle energy of any railgun from 1982 to 1988 during testing at Westinghouse Research and Development Center, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, and after installation at ARDEC, Picatinny, NJ, USA. Details of the design, components, and fabrication of EMACK are provided here, and results from the abbreviated initial testing are included. Many scientists, engineers and technical staff who worked on the project described here some 30 to 40+ years ago have by now mostly retired, moved on to other activities, or sadly, in several cases, are deceased. However, it would be remiss if their pioneering efforts were not recognized, and this article attempts to do that. Prospects for future energy storage and pulsed power developments using HPGs and more recent developments are also discussed.

JP Den Hartog about SP Timoshenko: Fifty Years Later

This study is devoted to Jacob Pieter Den Hartog’s views about Stephen Prokopovych Timoshenko. Both were outstanding contributors to the mechanics-based design of structures and machines. Additionally, both were refugees, who were running from hardships in their own countries. Den Hartog ran away from economic hardships that befell the Netherlands after World War I. Timoshenko escaped two Russian revolutions that took place in 1917, in addition to the takeover of Kiev by several armies, including foreign ones, and imminent Soviet rule in Ukraine. Their destinies led them to meet at the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in the USA. This study reviews two prime documents associated with their interaction. The first document is the newly discovered letter sent by Den Hartog to Timoshenko half a century ago, specifically, on the occasion of the latter’s 90th birthday in 1968. The second document is the review of the book As I Remember by SP Timoshenko that Den Hartog published in Science magazine, also in 1968. A complex interrelationship emerges between these two scientists. On the one hand, there is a tremendous appreciation felt by Den Hartog toward Timoshenko; on the other hand, one clearly observes Den Hartog’s disapproval of Timoshenko’s ingratitude to the USA, as expressed in Timoshenko’s autobiography, in numerous passages.

Modeling the UO2 ex-AUC pellet process and predicting the fuel rod temperature distribution under steady-state operating condition

Modeling uranium dioxide pellet process from ammonium uranyl carbonate - derived uranium dioxide powder (UO2 ex-AUC powder) and predicting fuel rod temperature distribution were reported in the paper. Response surface methodology (RSM) and FRAPCON-4.0 code were used to model the process and to predict the fuel rod temperature under steady-state operating condition. Fuel rod design of AP-1000 designed by Westinghouse Electric Corporation, in these the pellet fabrication parameters are from the study, were input data for the code. The predictive data were suggested the relationship between the fabrication parameters of UO2 pellets and their temperature image in nuclear reactor.

The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics by Louis Chude-Sokei

Reviewed by: The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics by Louis Chude-Sokei Paul Youngquist Louis Chude-Sokei. The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 2016. 268 pp. $27.95. Say you’ve been sent to planet Earth, emissary of a wise and beneficent post-human people. Your mission: to solve the old race problem that causes earth-lings so much misery. Your base of operations: the heart of the Imperium, twenty-first-century America. Your weapon: black technopoetics, a disruptor set to “stun.” You’d be following the secret agenda Louis Chude-Sokei advances in The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics. I say secret because this agenda doesn’t appear with complete clarity until near the book’s end. But Chude-Sokei wants to change the way race works both to differentiate black people from the norm of the (white) Human and justify their subjection to it. He pursues this mission, unexpectedly and with flashes of brilliance, by using the science fiction to challenge cultural stereotypes by way of the future they presume. “To combine race,” he writes, “with a futurism is to subject blackness to the vagaries of temporal transformation” (207). Chude-Sokei wants a blackness open to continuing transformation: “necessarily mutable, contingent, and therefore subject to going beyond itself ” (198). A fantasy? Only fantasy can tell. Science fiction (generically allied to fantasy, as the shelves of brick-and-mortar bookstores attest) builds futures out of the detritus of contemporary dreams. Chude-Sokei shows how deeply such dreams come stained by histories of racial subjection and colonialism in the West. It’s a gorgeous, sobering insight: science fiction, the escapist pabulum of white geeks, has been about race all along. Chude-Sokei can make it because he approaches science fiction in broadly cultural rather than textual terms as a displaced allegory of social relations that provides an armature for dreaming the future. For him the fundamental feature of the genre, the one that places race front and center, is its obsession with technology, or more colloquially, machines. This emphasis allies science fiction with Italian futurism, a contemporaneous modernism whose celebration of machine aesthetics served an obvious ethnic chauvinism. Here’s the “tell” Chude-Sokei observes and interprets: machines in science fiction mediate social relations between whites and blacks. To sustain this claim, he works back about a century to document an abiding cultural association between blacks and machines. It isn’t simply that as enslaved labor, transported Africans resembled the machines that would eventually replace them. Chude-Sokei establishes that, culturally speaking, blacks could pass for machines—and vice versa. Minstrelsy opens up this possibility by staging blackface performance as the liminal and empty other to the Human in a way that mimes the otherness of machines. A black automaton would clinch the point. Chude-Sokei finds one in the strange history of Joice Heth, the allegedly 161-year-old “mammy” of George Washington whom P. T. Barnum purchased in 1835 for public display, launching his spectacular career. Heth’s extreme age, her rigidity and blindness, made it hard to distinguish her from an automaton—source of her initial public renown. Barnum later heightened Heth’s uncanny appeal by billing her as an [End Page 76] automaton passing for human: a black machine. It would be hard to invent a more powerful instance of the assimilation of machines and blacks, a cultural fantasy that finds fulfillment in 1930 with the Westinghouse Electric Corporation’s design and manufacture of Mr. Rastus Robot, the Mechanical Negro. These material instances of mechanical blackness give heft to the claim that the conflation of blacks and machines becomes a pervasive motif in science fiction. Chude-Sokei shows how the nineteenth-century writing he calls “Victorian proto-science fiction” advances this association to the point of inevitability. He treats familiar authors in unfamiliar ways to reveal their displaced preoccupation with race and slavery. Herman Melville’s story “The Bell Tower” (1856) assimilates a critique of slavery to an account of a machine slaying its human master. Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s The Coming Race (1871), in Chude-Sokei’s words, “features the discovery of a superior and technologically...

Experimental investigation on natural convection heat transfer characteristics of C-shape heating rods bundle used in PRHR HX

The heat transfer performance of Passive Residual Heat Removal Heat Exchanger (PRHR HX) immerged in the In-containment Refueling Water Storage Tank (IRWST) is of great importance for the efficient and safe removal of the residual heat in the AP1000 plant. The C-shape heating rods bundle is being used in the PRHR HX, yet the heat transfer characteristics of this special C-shape heat exchanger are not completely clear. The Westinghouse Electric Corporation has performed the PRHR HX experiment using three vertical tubes to validate the design of PRHR HX. However, the horizontal sections of the C-shaped bundle were neglected, and attentions were mainly focused on the local heat transfer effect of the vertical tubes. In the present work, an overall scaled-down IRWST and PRHR HX models are built to simulate the thermal hydraulic process in the residual heat removal accident. The natural convection heat transfer characteristics of both the overall IRWST model and the local C-shaped PRHR HX bundle model are researched in the first stage. For the overall IRWST model, the natural convection flow vectors are qualitatively measured by PIV technique. The velocity and temperature distributions are influenced mutually, then thermal stratification phenomenon develops in the overall IRWST. The existence of the “thermal interface” has great influences on the thermal stratification. For the local PRHR HX heat transfer, traditional natural convection correlations for both horizontal and vertical bundles are compared to the experimental data. For the vertical bundle of the PRHR HX model, a revised Rayleigh number is proposed as a criterion for the slender vertical rod bundles, when the vertical rod bundle outside flow cannot be treated as flat plate. Then revised correlations are proposed to predict the PRHR HX average heat transfer coefficient. Moreover, the analysis shows that the forced convection also plays an important role in enhancing the heat transfer effect of the PRHR HX model upper horizontal bundle, so the modified Numix is recommended for the PRHR HX upper horizontal bundle secondary heat transfer calculation.

History of high intensity focused ultrasound, Bill and Frank Fry and the Bioacoustics Research Laboratory

1946 is a key year in the history of HIFU. That year, sixty-eight years ago, the Bioacoustics Research Laboratory was established at the University of Illinois. Trained in theoretical physics, William J, (Bill) Fry (1918–1968) left his graduate studies at Penn State University to work at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC on underwater sound during World War II. Bill was hired by the University of Illinois in 1946, wanting to continue to conduct research activities of his own choosing in the freer university atmosphere. Like Bill, Francis J. (Frank) Fry (1920–2005) went to Penn State as well as the University of Pittsburgh where he studied electrical engineering. Frank joined Bill at the University of Illinois, also in 1946, having worked at Westinghouse Electric Corporation where his division was a prime contractor on the Manhattan Project. Floyd Dunn also arrived at the University of Illinois in 1946 as an undergraduate student, having served in the European Theater during World War II. The talk will recount some of the significant HIFU contributions that emerged from BRL faculty, staff, and students. [NIH Grant R37EB002641.]

Acknowledging the Contributions of Dr. Chris Bagnall, Advisory Editor

Dr. Bagnall was a true driving force for the creation of this journal. His assistance has been invaluable in ways too numerous to mention, including helping to design the journal cover, shaping the journal’s aims and scope, mapping out departments, developing the Editorial Board, and identifying potential authors and reviewers. We have now completed two volumes of MMA, and while we look forward to the continued benefit of Dr. Bagnall’s support and guidance, we would like to at this time publicly acknowledge his many contributions, to both this journal and to the greater technical community of metallographers, microscopists, and metallurgists. A Fellow of ASM International, Dr. Bagnall is the 2009 recipient of the prestigious Henry Clifton Sorby Award, has twice received the President’s Award from the International Metallographic Society, and is also a recipient of the Jacquet–Lucas Award for Excellence in Metallography. Since 1999, Dr. Bagnall has served as the president and director of MCS Associates, a consulting firm in Latrobe, Pa. Previously, he had a 22-year career with the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, working within the Advanced Energy Systems Division. Prior to taking on his role with MMA, Dr. Bagnall served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Materials Characterization for 30 years. The editorial staff would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to Dr. Bagnall for his service to MMA; his Chris Bagnall Ryan M. Deacon

Corporate science education: Westinghouse and the value of science in mid-twentieth century America

This study examines a largely neglected aspect of the history of science popularization in the United States: corporate depictions of the value of science to society. It delineates the Westinghouse Electric Corporation's portrayals of science to its shareholders, employees and consumers, and schoolchildren and educators during World War Two and the postwar era. Annual reports to shareholders, in-house news publications, publicity records, advertising campaigns, and educational pamphlets distributed to schools reveal the company's distinct, but complementary, messages for different stakeholders about the importance of science to American society. Collectively, Westinghouse encouraged these audiences to rely on scientists' expert leadership for their nation's security and material comforts. In an era of military mobilization, the company was able to claim that industry-led scientific research would fortify the nation and create unbounded prosperity.

Simulation and analysis on 10-in. cold leg small break LOCA for AP1000

The AP1000 is a two-loop 3400MWt advanced passive plant developed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. A series of passive safety systems are adopted to provide significant improvements in plant simplification, safety and reliability. However, thermal hydraulic characteristics of AP1000 during small break LOCAs have not been fully understood and further investigation is still required.In this study, modeling and nodalization of primary loop, necessary secondary loop and passive core cooling system (PXS) for AP1000 were conducted and a 10-in. cold leg small break LOCA was analyzed using RELAP5/MOD3.4. Some main transient parameters were obtained, including RCS pressure, break flow, passive safety injection flow and cladding temperature, etc. Further, the calculated results were compared with that of NOTRUMP code developed by Westinghouse and an acceptable agreement was obtained.Results indicated that the actuation of passive safety systems could mitigate the accidental consequence of small break LOCAs effectively. The key thermal hydraulic parameters were in the acceptable range and met the safety criterion. During the accident process, the core uncovery and fuel heat up did not occur and thus the safety of AP1000 during a 10-in. cold leg small break LOCA was proven.

Experimental determination of subcriticality at subcritical PWRs in Korea

A direct subcriticality measurement system (SMS) based on the Feynman-α method has recently been developed by KEPRI. It was applied to six commercial pressurized water reactors in Korea. However, the obtained Feynman curves failed to give proper multiplication factors. The objective of these tests was to investigate the performance of the Feynman method to predict directly the subcriticality of a given subcritical reactor by using the neutron pulse counts only without any reactor perturbation in the large commercial reactors. Recently, two methods developed by Hokkaido University and Westinghouse Electric Corporation. These methods have a defect due to being based on the modified neutron source multiplication method. To overcome this defect and derive operational benefits is necessary to estimate the subcriticality of a subcritical core directly from the neutron pulse counts only. The performance of the developed SMS was verified in the Kyoto University Critical Assembly and applied to eight 1000 MWe Optimized Pressurized Water Reactors (OPR1000) in Korea. The obtained results show that the SMS based on the Feynman method can be a useful tool to estimate the reactivity of a subcritical power reactor. Although the discrimination level of the signal-processing unit in OPR1000 suffers from noise and gamma ray effects, SMS can provide good Feynman curves and effective multiplication factors. However, the SMS has failed to give the reactivity for the entire measured data set. Improving the SMS and investigating the effects of different discriminator level settings at SPU in OPR1000 will be topics for further study.

Embedded Controlled Three Level Inverter Based Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR)

This paper deals with simulation and implementation of three level inverter based Dynamic Voltage Restorer(DVR). The control of DVR that injects a voltage in series with a distribution feeder is presented. DVR is a power electronic controller that can protect sensitive loads from disturbances in supply system. DVR can regulate the voltage at the load. Laboratory model is developed and the experimental results are compared with simulation studies. I. INTRODUCTION A power electronic converter based series compensator that can protect critical loads from all supply side disturbances other than outages is called a dynamic voltage restorer. The restorer is capable of generating or absorbing independently controllable real and reactive power at its AC output terminal. This device employs solid state power electronic switches in a pulse width modulated (PWM) inverter structure. It injects a set of three phase AC output voltages in series and synchronism with the distribution feeder voltages. The amplitude and phase angle of the injected voltages are variable there by allowing control of the real and reactive power exchange between the device and the distribution system. The DC input terminal of the restorer is connected to an energy source or an energy storage device of appropriate capacity. The reactive power exchanged between the restorer and the distribution system is internally generated by the restorer without AC passive reactive components. The real power exchanged at the restorer output AC terminals is provided by the restorer input DC terminal from an external energy source or energy storage system. In August 1996, Westinghouse Electric Corporation installed world's first dynamic voltage restorer in Duke Power Company's 12.47 kV substation in Anderson, South Carolina. This was installed to provide protection to an automated rug manufacturing plant. Prior to this connection, the restorer was first installed at the Waltz Mill test facility near Pittsburgh for the full power tests. The test results are discussed in (1). The next commissioning of the

A Penalty Unaffected by Prior Remediation Costs

The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania has upheld a civil penalty of $3.2 million against Westinghouse Electric Corporation for violations of the state's clean streams law. The court said that the civil penalty was not excessive, even though the company had already spent millions of dollars to remediate the site.

Joseph Slepian-scientist, engineer, inventor

Joseph Slepian was a career scientist/engineer at the Research Laboratories of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation during the first half of the 20th century. At his retirement in 1956, he was Associate Director of Research, the position he had held since 1938. His scientific and inventive work was recognized by the IEEE through the Lamme and Edison medals. This article discusses his early life and schooling and his career at Westinghouse Electric. His career work is then described which covers lightning protection, glow discharges, the arc-cathode theory and arc-back. His inventions are briefly described and his awards and recognitions, and his writings, personal traits and philosophies are mentioned.

Development of passive safety systems for Next Generation PWR in Japan

Our country’s energy demand is expected to increase steadily into the future. When the situation of our country, which is not rich in energy resources, is taken into account, it seems that the importance of nuclear power generation will be heightened. Based on such a background, the basic policy for nuclear power generation is ‘from light water reactors to fast breeder reactors’. However, considering that light water reactors have become common, the recent outlook for the supply and demand for uranium resources, development trends of fast breeder reactor technology, etc., the light water reactor is expected to remain dominant in our country until at least the second half of the 21st century. Therefore, five PWR utilities in Japan (Hokkaido, Kansai, Shikoku, Kyushu, and Japan Atomic Power), Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd and Westinghouse Electric Corporation have jointly started researching the Next Generation PWR (N.G.P) which is expected to be the leading nuclear power plant, taking place of APWR [T. Magari, Development of Next Generation PWR in Japan, Proceedings of the 10th Pacific Basin Nuclear Conference, 1996; K. Fujimura, et al., Proceedings of the Second International Symposium on Global Environment and Nuclear Energy Systems, 1996]. In this program, construction is targeted to start from 2010 based on expected future environmental conditions. Now, the capacity of more than 1500 MWe class PWR concept is investigated and a plant concept which has innovative features of a hybrid safety systems, i.e. an optimum combination of active and passive safety systems, and horizontal steam generators for core cooling at the accidents is developed as a promising candidate. The plant concept and the results of the investigation are presented in this paper.

Evaluation of Initial Drug Selection For Newly Medicated Hypertensives at the Westinghouse Electric Corporation

OBJECTIVE: To describe prescribing practices and costs of antihypertensive medications in a large employee health program one to three years after the issuance of the recommendations of the Joint National Committee on Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure (JNC) for initial treatment of uncomplicated hypertension with beta blockers and diuretics as monotherapy, based on ample evidence that these agents reduce morbidity and mortality. SETTING: Employee health plan for Westinghouse Electric Corp. PATIENTS: 1,218 newly diagnosed hypertensives. DESIGN: To evaluate initial pharmacotherapy for newly medicated hypertensives and adherence to the JNC-V recommendations, paid medical pharmacy claims from Westinghouse Electric Corporation's employee health plan for 1994-96 were analyzed. This analysis was modeled after a similar study of John Deere employees in which the majority received monotherapy with calcium channel blockers or ACE inhibitors. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Antihypertensive medicati...

Transition from depressurization to long term cooling in AP600 scaled integral test facilities

A novel light water reactor design called the AP600 has been proposed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. In the evaluation of this plant’s behavior during a small break loss of coolant accident (LOCA), the crucial transition to low pressure, long-term cooling is marked by the injection of the gravitationally driven flow from the in-containment refueling water storage tank (IRWST). The onset of this injection is characterized by intermittency in the IRWST flow. This happens at a time when the reactor vessel reaches its minimum inventory. Therefore, it is important to understand and scale the behavior of the integral experimental test facilities during this portion of the transient. The explanation is that the periodic liquid drains and refills of the pressurizer are the reason for the intermittent behavior. The momentum balance for the surge line yields the nondimensional parameter controlling this process. Data from one of the three experimental facilities represent the phenomena well at the prototypical scale. The impact of the intermittent IRWST injection on the safe plant operation is assessed and its implications are successfully resolved. The oscillation is found to result from, in effect, excess water in the primary system and it is not of safety significance.

99/00730 High performance power system development including scaling considerations

A High-Performance Power System (HIPPS) is being developed under the sponsorship of the United States Department of Energy, Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center (PETC). This system is a coal-fired combined cycle that uses a High Temperature Advanced Furnace (HITAF) to transfer much of the heat to the air- and steam-working fluids. Systems of this type are capable of ovr 47% efficiency (HHV). The Foster Wheeler design uses a pyrolyzation process to convert the coal into fuel gas and char. Having these two fuels available allows the design of a totally coal fueled HIPPS with currently available materials. Foster Wheeler Development corporation (FWDC) is leading a team of companies in the development of this power generation system. The team member companies are AlliedSignal Inc., Bechtel Corporation, Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation, University of Tennessee Space Institute and Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Cornell University are working on a separately funded DOE project titled The Scale-Up of Large Pressurized Fluidized Beds for Advanced Coal-Fired power processes. The work being done in this project will be used to support the scale up of results from the pyrolyzer testing.