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TransWare's engineers have been involved in nearly all aspects of nuclear fuel management. We have accumulated nearly thirty man-years of experience in the design, licensing, operation, and analysis of nuclear fuel. The following sections summarize the types of fuel management activities that our engineers have been involved with in the past, and areas in which we can provide support to you in the future.
Technical Audits, Bid Evaluations, and Licensing
TransWare personnel have participated in technical audits of fuel vendor design and manufacturing processes, performed technical evaluations and assessments of fuel vendor bids, and prepared and reviewed licensing topical reports. TransWare personnel have also reviewed and performed safety evaluations to support 50.59 applications.
Fuel Management and Core Support Calculations
TransWare personnel have supported reactor operations by performing core design reviews and calculations, core follow and control rod pattern development calculations, control rod withdrawal sequences to criticality and plant startup, evaluation of cycle operating strategies, and system integration assessments. We are familiar with a wide variety of nuclear methods code packages, including those from EPRI, Studsvik, ScandPower, and General Electric.
Fuel Assembly Criticality Calculations
TransWare personnel have developed fuel assembly off-load and loading strategies, including optimization of in-core refueling shuffles. TransWare personnel have also performed criticality calculations using Monte Carlo and integral transport theory methods to assess spent fuel pool conditions.
Fuel Failure Assessment
TransWare has considerable expertise in the area of assessing fuel failure indications. Probably the most widely used software tool for assessing fuel failure indications, CHIRON, was originally developed by TransWare personnel for EPRI. We also completed a Microsoft Windows version of CHIRON, which has been released by EPRI. Additionally, TransWare personnel implemented EPRI's Fuel Integrity Monitoring and Failure Evaluation Handbook. We have consulted with a number of different utilities and plants after they developed indications of fuel failure.
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