Skip to main content

Giant Digital Simulator Enhances D.C. Cook Plant Training

NEI’s Top Industry Practice Awards recognize innovation in the nuclear energy industry. Presented at NEI’s annual conference, the awards honor accomplishments that help the industry improve safety, streamline processes and increase efficiency. 

In a special series of articles this week, Nuclear Energy Overview highlights the challenges and successes of five winners.


The winners of the TIP Training Award further enhanced their facility’s training by developing a way for reactor operators to hone their skills through advanced simulator training.

The plant simulation department at American Electric Power’s D.C. Cook facility in Michigan developed a 17-foot-by-7-foot rear-projection touchscreen that supports several different virtual simulations, including control room panels, safety-related field equipment and chemistry training. The system, which also includes computers for 30 students, is designed to mimic the responses of real equipment.

“You flip a switch, you turn a knob, you adjust a knob—everything’s the same,” said simulator supervisor Tim Vriezema.

According to Vriezema, bringing in supervisors and equipment experts was essential to ensure the simulations were as realistic as possible.


“They can tell you what feels wrong. They can say, ‘That responds too quickly,’ ‘This doesn’t feel right,’ so you can fine-tune it,” he said.

Training on simulators rather than on duplicate equipment has benefits for plant operators.

First, “you can actually see how what you’re doing is affecting [the equipment]. The physics behind the model is displayable,” Vriezema said.

Acquiring and maintaining duplicate safety equipment for training purposes would have cost American Electric Power $153,000 more than the simulator training development did. Simulator training also takes place outside of radiation-protected areas, keeping employees out of high-dose areas while they are learning.
Vriezema praised the simulation department for its work on the project—not their first to garner recognition throughout the industry.

“It’s a staff of five, and this is the third time we’ve won [a TIP Award]. I have a very, very gifted and creative staff. You throw out an idea and they just run with it.”

Comments

Anonymous said…
All fine and great and well and good, but before we break our arms patting ourselves on the back, it is good to remember that simulation does not produce a single watt-hour of energy, not even a single neutron. You still need a functional plant in order to have something useful to simulate. With these plants dropping like flies lately (Crystal River, Kewaunee, SONGS), I'm worried we're going to be all hat and no cattle (simulate the hell out of something that doesn't exist anymore).

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin