On Thursday, October 25, 2007, there will be a joint Meeting of the IEEE Richland Section and ASNT Columbia River Section.  Dr. Leonard Bond, Laboratory Fellow, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and IEEE Region 6 Director-Elect, will speak on "Improved Economics of Nuclear Plant Life Management".

Location – Red Lion Hotel, 802 George Washington Way, Richland                       

Social – 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm (reception buffet and non-alcoholic beverages)

IEEE & ASNT members: $5.00   Guests: $10.00     RSVP: (509) 375-4425

Presentation -- 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm

Presentation Abstract: The adoption of new on-line monitoring, diagnostic and eventually prognostics technologies has the potential to impact the economics of the existing nuclear power plant fleet, new plants and future advanced designs. To move from periodic inspection to on-line monitoring for condition-based maintenance and eventually prognostics will require advances in sensors, better understanding of what and how to measure within the plant; enhanced data interrogation, communication and integration; new predictive models for damage/aging evolution; system integration for real-world deployments; quantification of uncertainties in what are inherently ill-posed problems and the integration of enhanced condition-based maintenance/prognostics philosophies into new plant designs, operation and O&M approaches. The move to digital systems in petrochemical process and fossil fuel power plants is enabling major advances to occur in the instrumentation, controls and monitoring systems and approaches employed. The adoption within the nuclear power community of advanced on-line monitoring and advanced diagnostics has the potential for the reduction in costly periodic surveillance that requires plant shut-down, more accurate cost-benefit analysis, “just-in-time” maintenance, pre-staging of maintenance tasks, movement towards true “operation without failures” and a jump start on advanced technologies for new plant concepts, such as those proposed under the International Gen IV Program. There are significant opportunities to adopt condition-based maintenance when upgrades are implemented at existing facilities. The economic benefit from a predictive maintenance program based on advanced on-line monitoring and advanced diagnostics can be demonstrated from a cost/benefit analysis. An analysis of the 104 U.S. legacy systems has indicated potential savings at over $1B per year when applied to all key equipment; a summary of the supporting analysis is provided.

About the Speaker: Dr. Bond is a Laboratory Fellow at the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).  He is an internationally recognized expert in applied physics with more than 25 years experience in measurement sciences. His current research is focused on measurements for nuclear power systems. He was principal investigator for a DOE NERI Project (1999-02) to develop prognostics for nuclear power systems and co-IP for a 2002 NERI project to develop QA/QC tools for TRISO particles. He was the lead for PNNL’s Laboratory Level Advanced Nuclear Science and Technology Initiative (ANSTI) and was a major contributor to the development of PNNL’s Integrated Nuclear Strategy. 

He has served on numerous conference committees including the American Nuclear Society  4th, 5th  and 6th Topical Meeting on Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control and Human-Machine Interface Technologies (NPIC&HMIT).  He is a US delegate to the International Electrotechnical Commission, WG 45, nuclear instrumentation. He was a member of the working group that recently submitted an instrumentation and controls, human machine interface technologies roadmap for advanced reactors to the US DOE.