Friday, November 28, 2014

My 30 year anniversary UHI and the NRC Training Center (Simulator)


I knew how to operate; of course, I knew my stuff!





The caption below refers to a photograph from today's (May 5, 2010) NRC web page.

NRC Commissioner William Ostendorff (center) recently toured the agency’s Technical Training Center, established in 1980, in Chattanooga, Tenn. where nuclear plant simulators, like the one shown here, provide hands-on training for NRC engineers.
Of course, I wonder about the quality of that hands-on training for NRC engineers. Baker-Just and Cathcart-Pawel are alive and likely the 2200 Fahrenheit game is in the NRC's simulator.
The NRC engineers' time would be better spent in a study of PRM-50-93 and its associated public comments.

The above caption says the Technical Training Center was established during 1980. Following is my experience with that Center during 1984. Click to enlarge; your return arrow gets you back.




Here is more!


THURSDAY, AUGUST 16, 2012


UHI Ultra High Risk EPRI NSAC NRC Ohi

This is the third consecutive entry in my UHI series.   Here are three uploaded pages that document part of the turmoil that followed my October 3, 1984, memorandum, UHI-Ultra High Risk.    Click on the page to enlarge for easier reading and access to the right side that is partially obscured.



As I said in earlier, my October 3, 1984 memo let to a lot of turmoil.  The heat was on. I was fighting for survival, so I worked on the day after Thanksgiving and it was an advantage to have no others around.

The above memorandum was addressed to Lang who had been assigned to monitor (to control) the UHI investigations.  So, I worked within the system, and addressed all correspondence to Lang, but I worked independently. I stayed under control because I intended to continue working for EPRI, however, my above contact with the NRC Training Center was effective and there was no way that NSAC could reprimand me for pursuing that credible source even though it alarmed Rossin and very likely others.

Rossin was apparently concerned that Taylor would think Leyse was out of control, hence his note of 11/30 (1984) in which he stopped distribution to J. J. Taylor, the head of the EPRI Nuclear Power Division. 

I'll have further documentation of the very revealing UHI  turmoil that raged within NSAC and EPRI. Several outside organizations became involved including at least three within the NRC. The SANDIA National Laboratory was drawn into the turmoil as a consultant to the NRC.  The ACRS wrote a letter to the Commissioners of the NRC and I'll also post that later.  EPRI even hired an outplacement service, Ward Associates on the famous Sand Hill Road, and later you read how that action intensified the turmoil, although I believe it worked to my advantage.

And More.  It is a great 30th Anniversary!

TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2012


UHI Ultra High Risk, October 3, 1984: Inside Stuff, EPRI & NRC

This is my sixth consecutive entry that documents the turmoil that followed my memorandum, UHI Ultra High Risk, October 3, 1984.

This entry jumps ahead of a lot of documentation that I have and that I guess I'll have to place in book if I ever get around to writing that.  On November 7, 1984, Rossin and Breen told me my position was being eliminated, but that I'd have a few months to look for work elsewhere.  So, I looked elsewhere with no immediate success.  I talked to Jim Keppler of the NRC and showed him my memorandum, UHI Ultra High Risk, October 3, 1984, as part of several illustrations of my experience and capabilities.  Keppler asked if he could send this elsewhere in NRC and I agreed, however, I blanked out the source of the document as well as my name.

So, the following two pages are an interesting document that reveals very secret relationships between EPRI and the NRC that I was never aware of.  It also reveals turmoil.  I do not recall how I gained access to the following document; it most certainly was not sent to me.  I am inclined to doubt that Rossin was aware of it, but I do not know that.  I suspect that Layman and Lang were not aware that my position had been eliminated.  On the other hand, 
Rossin may have encouraged this documentation in order to justify getting rid of Leyse. Click to enlarge and back arrow to return.





I'm certainly pleased that EPRI (Layman and Lang) documented the above. This is a clear report of a basically secret set of arrangements between EPRI and the NRC and I suspect that those have continued in various forms over the years and are really intense in today's post-Fukushima world. 

The second page is "interesting" as it describes the "running around" in generating a response to Keppler.  The very last paragraph is also revealing as EPRI apologizes to the NRC for my contact with Keppler.  Well, it is a fact that I was never a party to contacts with the NRC regarding our analyses of operating experience at nuclear power plants.  It is also a fact that others who analyzed operating experience were not very adept at that work.

More later.










Sunday, November 23, 2014

5th International Conference on Boiling Heat Transfer Montego Bay, Jamaica, May 4-8, 2003

 5th International Conference on Boiling Heat Transfer
Montego Bay, Jamaica, May 4-8, 2003

Monday, October 13, 2014

Auracher Nukiyama Boiling Analysis

Here is reference that may be useful.
http://www.jsme.or.jp/ted/NewsLetter42/Auracher_J.pdf

http://www.jsme.or.jp/ted/NewsLetter42/Auracher_J.pdf

Some Remarks on the Nukiyama Curve
Hein Auracher
Professor, Dr.−Ing.
Institut für Energietechnik
Techniche Universität Berlin
auracher@iet.tu-berlin.de

It was about 70 years ago when Shiro Nukiyama published his pioneering paper on “Maximum and Minimum Values of Heat Q Transmitted from Metal to Boiling Water under Atmospheric Pressure” [1]. A milestone at the beginning of a long way towards the “truth” in boiling heat transfer. Numerous researchers
discovered a lot on this way but the more we find out the more difficult it becomes to really understand this extremely complex process.

Basically Nukiyama’s boiling curve has never been disputed. Only specific aspects were and are subject of studies or disagreements. The shape of the boiling curve, for instance, is still a subject of discussions in terms of its behavior in the transition region, its change in a transient situation with respect to the steady-state case, its dependence on contaminations on the heating surface etc. 

The shape of the boiling curve and its change under
different system conditions is, of course, a result of different boiling mechanisms and their change. Since pure empirism can never solve such problems, several physical models for the different boiling modes have been developed. We should trust these models only after experimental verification. Moreover, due to the improvement of our experimental techniques and also of the mathematical tools in recent years, older and relative simple models can now be improved and new ones can be developed.

The present report makes some remarks on the aspects mentioned above. Of course not comprehensive and – subject of excuse – focused mainly on our own work. It is just meant as a small tribute to Nukiyama’s pioneering work. Those who need a sort of survey on new developments may look into the “Proceedings of the 5th Int. Boiling Heat Transfer Conf. in Jamaica, May 2003”. A selection of the papers presented there will soon be published in the “International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow”.

HYSTERESES ALONG THE NUKIYAMA CURVE
No contradiction exists about a hysteresis in the region of nucleation incipience (see Fig. 1). In contrast, in transition boiling and for steady-state conditions a hysteresis was postulated [2] consisting of a transitional nucleate boiling–and a film boiling–branch, both overlapping with respect to the heat flux. However, if a precise temperature control system [3] is available and with a clean heating surface, boiling curves even for liquids with large contact angles (water) show no hysteresis regardless in which direction they are measured: stepwise from
film to nucleate boiling or vice versa. In contrast, if surface contamination is involved, boiling curves are not reproducible. Each test run, even under carefully established steady- state conditions, results in a shift of the curve already at a minimal change of the deposit [3,4].
log
CHF
MHF
surface
evaporation
nucleate
boiling
transition
boiling
film
boiling
incipience of
nucleation
∆T = TW - Tsat
q
heat
flux
wall superheat
B
A
A
B
Fig. 1: The Nukiyama curve.

The boiling curve behavior log
changes under transient conditions,
even on clean surfaces. Recently it
was argued that “how the unsteady
process influences the hysteresis is not
cleared, yet” [5]. Objection! It is, as
shown by systematic experiments in
[6]. There, measurements with
controlled heating and cooling rates
were carried out, of course, by taking
into account the “coupling problem
[5]” between heater and fluid which
requires the solution of an inverse heat
conduction problem. One typical
result is shown in Fig. 2: The

steady-state curve was measured with 

JSME TED Newsletter, No.41, 2003









Saturday, October 11, 2014

Upton Sinclair Wisdom

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Power Transformer Lifetime

Here is a reliable reference:

http://site.ge-energy.com/prod_serv/plants_td/en/downloads/powergrid_europe07.pdf 


POWER TRANSFORMER LIFE EXTENSION 
THROUGH BETTER MONITORING

Brian D. Sparling, Jacques Aubin
GE Energy
Power Transformer Reliability

Power transformers are essential components of transmission systems and often the most valuable asset  in a substation. Winding construction is based on the time-proven technology of copper conductor, wrapped in cellulose insulation, and fully impregnated with insulating oil. With a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) above 100 years, transformers are regarded as highly dependable equipment. However, the general transformer population is now aging. This by itself would increase the risk of failure but it is  compounded by the trend to load transformers to higher levels to meet economic constraints of deregulated power systems environment. 

Saturday, October 4, 2014

The Boiling Heat Transfer Laboratory at UCLA has been shut down.

Really, the Boiling Heat Transfer Laboratory at UCLA has very likely not been shut down.  However, its web page is unavailable, and that is unfortunate. 

I have made email requests for an explanation, here is the latest, but I have had no response.
Boiling Heat Transfer Laboratory
Date: 10/1/2014 12:44:11 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time
From: Send IM to: BobleyseBobleyse@aol.com
To: gwarrier@ucla.edu
Sent from the Internet (Details)
Gopi:
It has been a while since I contacted the Boiling Heat Transfer Laboratory; in fact, I was the first to contact that site a while back.  However, I have been trying for the past several weeks with no luck. So, what is going on?
Bob                bobleyse@aol.com

Here is an entry to this blog from a while back.  The first two links yield prompt responses.  However the third link (to my paper) is unresponsive. And the fourth link (to the Boiling Heat Transfer Laboratory at UCLA) is also unresponsive.

Of course, I am not pleased.  


THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2008


Boiling Heat Transfer Gang

I reported my great discoveries in abbreviated form during 2002:

http://www.millpress.nl/shop/abooks/THERMES/THERMES/195.pdfand



http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT9/Abstracts/Leyse/index.html

Next, I intoduced UCLA (Dhir) to this field and I presented a more detailed paper at the Montego Bay Boiling Conference during 2003.



Leyse, R.H., Meduri, P.K., Warrier, G.R. and Dhir, V.K., “MICROSCALE PHASE CHANGE HEAT TRANSFER AT HIGH HEAT FLUX,” Proceedings of the 5th International Boiling Heat Transfer Conference, Montego Bay, Jamaica, May 4-8, 2003.





http://boiling.seas.ucla.edu/Publications/Conf_LMWD2003



Previous Boiling Conferences and their corresponding chairs:
YEAR
Country
Chair

1992
Santa Barbara, CA, USA
V.K. Dhir (UCLA)

1995
Banff, Canada
J. Chen (Lehigh University)

1997
Irsee, Germany
F. Mayinger (University of Munich)

2000
Girdwood, Alaska, USA
A. Bar-Cohen (University of Minnesota)

2003
Montego Bay, Jamaica
J. Klausner (University of Florida)

2006
Spoleto, Italy
G.P. Celata (ENEA)