Backward stability for cranes has always been a serious consideration and often misunderstood or overlooked. The tendency is to carefully study the capacity charts to assure frontward stability when planning a lift. It is somewhat counter intuitive to worry about backward stability as all the lifting is being done over the front. In fact, there […]
Unloading of spent nuclear fuel at nuclear utilities typically involves removing spent fuel from the spent fuel pool and placing it in casks for interim on-site storage. During unloading, some utilities use what is known as a “stacked cask” configuration in which a transfer cask is temporarily stacked on top of a storage cask as […]
Prompt Early Response by Regulators and Industry – Shortly after the March 11, 2011 magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, and damaged the six nuclear power plants at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi site, the US NRC began to follow the situation. The NRC also established a Task Force to develop lessons learned. The Near-Term Task […]
Oil system cleaning or Oil Flush has humbled many Machinery Guys. What seems like a very simple task often turns out to be to the Achilles’ heel and often unpredicted and embarrassing critical path of the machinery overhaul. The purpose of this article is to outline improvements that we have implemented to the old-fashion “Flush […]
Apples to Oranges? Over the years, one thing that continuously strikes fear into many hearts of Safety professionals and management alike, is the Safety challenge that comes with a turnaround. A turnaround of any scale will introduce a totally different dynamic into the workplace. Assuming the status-quo in Safety will suffice during a turnaround is […]
While there are currently no explicit rules on how to perform a finite element analysis (FEA) if you are doing so in support of an ASME Section VIII, Division 1 vessel, there is good practice. Regarding rules, all you have is from Article U-2(g), which says: This Division of Section VIII does not contain […]
While fracture mechanics is used in fitness-for-service, FFS, for evaluation of crack like flaws that are detected and for evaluation of the potential for brittle fracture, it is also used in new design to evaluate fatigue life. The rules for high pressure vessels in Section VIII, Div 3 and ASME B31.3 Chapter X permit and […]
