[ RadSafe ] SONGS Tube wear

[Brennan, Mike (DOH)]

Speaks to the desirability to do full scale prototyping and testing
before rollout.  I know it is easier and cheaper to believe your models
are perfect reflections of reality, but later this week I will drive
over the replacement of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the original of which
so spectacularly demonstrated how things that seemed too trivial (or
complicated) to include in the model can have a big effect in the real
world.  Of course, the Narrows Bridge also showed that sometimes the
design flaw will not manifest until the thing is built, so I guess the
take-away lesson is, "sometimes your hosed."

On the bright side, they spotted the problem before there was a major
failure, and even with a major tube failure it is hard to build a
scenario where a large amount of rad would get released to the
environment due to a steam generator tube failure (one of the advantages
of PWRs over BWRs, but I admit to being biased.)

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of
JOHN.RICH at sargentlundy.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 7:18 AM
To: The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List
Subject: [ RadSafe ] SONGS Tube wear

This website has a short explanation of the cause of the SONGS tube wear
- 
worth looking at if you haven't already seen it.  - -jmr

http://phys.org/news/2012-06-feds-flaw-nuke-woes.html

John Rich
312-269-3768
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