Nuclear Street - Nuclear Power Plant News, Jobs, and Careers

- Edited By Tom Lamar -

Power-Gen / Nuclear Power International Conference - Tuesday night at the Valencia Ballroom of the Orange County Convention Center, Power Engineering magazine recognized the 2010 Projects of the Year Award finalists and announced the winners. This year’s Projects of the Year Award winners and honorable mentions produced facilities and/or technologies that ushered in breakthrough solutions in nuclear power and other energy sources.

Best Nuclear Project

Project of the Year: Entergy’s new-generation tungsten shield project at Arkansas Nuclear One, Russellville, Ark.

The development of new-generation tungsten shields at Arkansas Nuclear One (ANO), operated by Entergy, is the Nuclear Project of the Year. ANO attempted to look beyond conventional materials such as lead, steel and water for methods in shielding applications. The result was the development of a flexible, heat-resistant shielding made of tungsten and iron metal powder immersed in silicone polymer.

The project consisted of two parts: shielding the source, which employs a new method of attaching using imbedded magnets that form fit with ease. Part two of the tungsten shielding project was shielding the person, which was fulfilled through the use of a tungsten vest. The ANO team found the fabricated tungsten vest to provide better radiation protection than a lead application, proving to be more effective at stopping gamma rays.

Honorable Mention

Entergy’s gimbaled head project at Palisades Nuclear Power Plant, Covert, Mich.

The honorable mention for Nuclear Project of the Year was also an Entergy-owned project, the gimbaled head project at the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Covert, Mich. Palisades, along with AREVA, developed the gimbaled head solution. A gimbaled head is a low-mass head-flexure assembly for reading and writing information scanned from nozzle volume to external hard drive.

The gimbaled head device minimized the footprint of the transducers through the implementation of a new water delivery and retrieval system. The new design eliminated the need for OD Ultrasonic Transducer; a 50 percent savings in mechanical instrumentation and capability of performing both inspections with one device.