Veterans counseling program : status report on the implementation of Iowa Code 35.12, Veterans Counseling & Outreach Program, 2008

This report gives an overview, background and progress on the implementation of the Veterans Counseling Program established pursuant to Iowa Code 35.12, as enacted by 2007 Iowa Acts, House FIle 817.

Modelling of a Hydrogen Catalytic Recombiner for Nuclear Power Plant Containment Studies; Case: Siemens FR90/1-150 Recombiner in TONUS OD Code

Ydinvoimalaitokset on suunniteltu ja rakennettu niin, että niillä on kyky selviytyä erilaisista käyttöhäiriöistä ja onnettomuuksista ilman laitoksen vahingoittumista sekä väestön ja ympäristön vaarantumista. On erittäin epätodennäköistä, että ydinvoimalaitosonnettomuus etenee reaktorisydämen vaurioitumiseen asti, minkä seurauksena sydänmateriaalien hapettuminen voi tuottaa vetyä. Jäädytyspiirin rikkoutumisen myötä vety saattaa kulkeutua ydinvoimalaitoksen suojarakennukseen, jossa se voi muodostaa palavan seoksen ilman hapen kanssa ja palaa tai jopa räjähtää. Vetypalosta aiheutuvat lämpötila- ja painekuormitukset vaarantavat suojarakennuksen eheyden ja suojarakennuksen sisällä olevien turvajärjestelmien toimivuuden, joten tehokas ja luotettava vedynhallintajärjestelmä on tarpeellinen. Passiivisia autokatalyyttisiä vetyrekombinaattoreita käytetäänyhä useammissa Euroopan ydinvoimaitoksissa vedynhallintaan. Nämä rekombinaattorit poistavat vetyä katalyyttisellä reaktiolla vedyn reagoidessa katalyytin pinnalla hapen kanssa muodostaen vesihöyryä. Rekombinaattorit ovat täysin passiivisiaeivätkä tarvitse ulkoista energiaa tai operaattoritoimintaa käynnistyäkseen taitoimiakseen. Rekombinaattoreiden käyttäytymisen tutkimisellatähdätään niiden toimivuuden selvittämiseen kaikissa mahdollisissa onnettomuustilanteissa, niiden suunnittelun optimoimiseen sekä niiden optimaalisen lukumäärän ja sijainnin määrittämiseen suojarakennuksessa. Suojarakennuksen mallintamiseen käytetään joko keskiarvoistavia ohjelmia (Lumped parameter (LP) code), moniulotteisia virtausmalliohjelmia (Computational Fluid Dynamics, CFD) tai näiden yhdistelmiä. Rekombinaattoreiden mallintaminen on toteutettu näissä ohjelmissa joko kokeellisella, teoreettisella tai yleisellä (eng. Global Approach) mallilla. Tämä diplomityö sisältää tulokset TONUS OD-ohjelman sisältämän Siemens FR90/1-150 rekombinaattorin mallin vedynkulutuksen tarkistuslaskuista ja TONUS OD-ohjelmalla suoritettujen laskujen tulokset Siemens rekombinaattoreiden vuorovaikutuksista. TONUS on CEA:n (Commissariat à 1'En¬ergie Atomique) kehittämä LP (OD) ja CFD -vetyanalyysiohjelma, jota käytetään vedyn jakautumisen, palamisenja detonaation mallintamiseen. TONUS:sta käytetään myös vedynpoiston mallintamiseen passiivisilla autokatalyyttisillä rekombinaattoreilla. Vedynkulutukseen vaikuttavat tekijät eroteltiin ja tutkittiin yksi kerrallaan. Rekombinaattoreiden vuorovaikutuksia tutkittaessa samaan tilavuuteen sijoitettiin eri kokoisia ja eri lukumäärä rekombinaattoreita. Siemens rekombinaattorimalli TONUS OD-ohjelmassa laskee vedynkulutuksen kuten oletettiin ja tulokset vahvistavat TONUS OD-ohjelman fysikaalisen laskennan luotettavuuden. Mahdollisia paikallisia jakautumia tutkitussa tilavuudessa ei voitu havaita LP-ohjelmalla, koska se käyttäälaskennassa suureiden tilavuuskeskiarvoja. Paikallisten jakautumien tutkintaan tarvitaan CFD -laskentaohjelma.

Validation Studies of Thermal-hydraulic Code for Safety Analysis of Nuclear Power Plants

This thesis gives an overview of the validation process for thermal hydraulic system codes and it presents in more detail the assessment and validation of the French code CATHARE for VVER calculations. Three assessment cases are presented: loop seal clearing, core reflooding and flow in a horizontal steam generator. The experience gained during these assessment and validation calculations has been used to analyze the behavior of the horizontal steam generator and the natural circulation in the geometry of the Loviisa nuclear power plant. The cases presented are not exhaustive, but they give a good overview of the work performed by the personnel of Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT). Large part of the work has been performed in co-operation with the CATHARE-team in Grenoble, France. The design of a Russian type pressurized water reactor, VVER, differs from that of a Western-type PWR. Most of thermal-hydraulic system codes are validated only for the Western-type PWRs. Thus, the codes should be assessed and validated also for VVER design in order to establish any weaknesses in the models. This information is needed before codes can be used for the safety analysis. Theresults of the assessment and validation calculations presented here show that the CATHARE code can be used also for the thermal-hydraulic safety studies for VVER type plants. However, some areas have been indicated which need to be reassessed after further experimental data become available. These areas are mostly connected to the horizontal stem generators, like condensation and phase separation in primary side tubes. The work presented in this thesis covers a large numberof the phenomena included in the CSNI code validation matrices for small and intermediate leaks and for transients. Also some of the phenomena included in the matrix for large break LOCAs are covered. The matrices for code validation for VVER applications should be used when future experimental programs are planned for code validation.

Transforming Maritime Safety Culture. Evaluation of the impacts of the ISM Code on maritime safety culture in Finland

The purpose of the METKU Project (Development of Maritime Safety Culture) is to study how the ISM Code has influenced the safety culture in the maritime industry. This literature review is written as a part of the Work Package 2 which is conducted by the University of Turku, Centre for Maritime Studies. The maritime traffic is rapidly growing in the Baltic Sea which leads to a growing risk of maritime accidents. Particularly in the Gulf of Finland, the high volume of traffic causes a high risk of maritime accidents. The growing risks give us good reasons for implementing the research project concerning maritime safety and the effectiveness of the safety measures, such as the safety management systems. In order to reduce maritime safety risks, the safety management systems should be further developed. The METKU Project has been launched to examine the improvements which can be done to the safety management systems. Human errors are considered as the most important reason for maritime accidents. The international safety management code (the ISM Code) has been established to cut down the occurrence of human errors by creating a safety-oriented organizational culture for the maritime industry. The ISM Code requires that a company should provide safe practices in ship operation and a safe working environment and establish safeguards against all identified risk. The fundamental idea of the ISM Code is that companies should continuously improve safety. The commitment of the top management is essential for implementing a safety-oriented culture in a company. The ISM Code has brought a significant contribution to the progress of maritime safety in recent years. Shipping companies and ships’ crews are more environmentally friendly and more safety-oriented than 12 years ago. This has been showed by several studies which have been analysed for this literature research. Nevertheless, the direct effect and influence of the ISM Code on maritime safety could not be isolated very well. No quantitative measurement (statistics/hard data) could be found in order to present the impacts of the ISM Code on maritime safety. In this study it has been discovered that safety culture has emerged and it is developing in the maritime industry. Even though the roots of the safety culture have been established there are still serious barriers to the breakthrough of the safety management. These barriers could be envisaged as cultural factors preventing the safety process. Even though the ISM Code has been effective over a decade, the old-established behaviour which is based on the old day’s maritime culture still occurs. In the next phase of this research project, these cultural factors shall be analysed in regard to the present safety culture of the maritime industry in Finland.

Modelling of the PWR PACTEL vertical steam generator with the TRACE code

The behavior of the nuclear power plants must be known in all operational situations. Thermal hydraulics computer applications are used to simulate the behavior of the plants. The computer applications must be validated before they can be used reliably. The simulation results are compared against the experimental results. In this thesis a model of the PWR PACTEL steam generator was prepared with the TRAC/RELAP Advanced Computational Engine computer application. The simulation results can be compared against the results of the Advanced Process Simulator analysis software in future. Development of the model of the PWR PACTEL vertical steam generator is introduced in this thesis. Loss of feedwater transient simulation examples were carried out with the model.

Efficiency of the ISM Code in Finnish Shipping Companies

Due to increasing waterborne transportation in the Gulf of Finland, the risk of a hazardous accident increases and therefore manifold preventive actions are needed. As a main legislative authority in the maritime community, The International Maritime Organization (IMO) has set down plenary laws and recommendations which are e.g., utilised in the safe operations in ships and pollution prevention. One of these compulsory requirements, the ISM Code, requires proactive attitude both from the top management and operational workers in the shipping companies. In this study, a crosssectional approach was taken to analyse whether the ISM Code has actively enhanced maritime safety in the Gulf of Finland. The analysis included; 1) performance of the ISM Code in Finnish shipping companies, 2) statistical measurements of maritime safety, 3) influence of corporate top management to the safety culture and 4) comparing safety management practices in shipping companies and port operations of Finnish maritime and port authorities. The main results found were that maritime safety culture has developed in the right direction after the launch of the ISM Code in the 1990´s. However, this study does not exclusively prove that the improvements are the consequence of the ISM Code. Accident prone ships can be recognized due to their behaviour and there is a lesson to learn from the safety culture of some high standard safety disciplines such as, air traffic. In addition, the reporting of accidents and nearmisses should be more widely used in shipping industry. In conclusion, there is still much to be improved in the maritime safety culture of the Finnish Shipping industry, e.g., a “no blame culture” needs to be adopted.

Modelling of hydrogen stratification and gas mixing in containment using the APROS code

Hydrogen stratification and atmosphere mixing is a very important phenomenon in nuclear reactor containments when severe accidents are studied and simulated. Hydrogen generation, distribution and accumulation in certain parts of containment may pose a great risk to pressure increase induced by hydrogen combustion, and thus, challenge the integrity of NPP containment. The accurate prediction of hydrogen distribution is important with respect to the safety design of a NPP. Modelling methods typically used for containment analyses include both lumped parameter and field codes. The lumped parameter method is universally used in the containment codes, because its versatility, flexibility and simplicity. The lumped parameter method allows fast, full-scale simulations, where different containment geometries with relevant engineering safety features can be modelled. Lumped parameter gas stratification and mixing modelling methods are presented and discussed in this master’s thesis. Experimental research is widely used in containment analyses. The HM-2 experiment related to hydrogen stratification and mixing conducted at the THAI facility in Germany is calculated with the APROS lump parameter containment package and the APROS 6-equation thermal hydraulic model. The main purpose was to study, whether the convection term included in the momentum conservation equation of the 6-equation modelling gives some remarkable advantages compared to the simplified lumped parameter approach. Finally, a simple containment test case (high steam release to a narrow steam generator room inside a large dry containment) was calculated with both APROS models. In this case, the aim was to determine the extreme containment conditions, where the effect of convection term was supposed to be possibly high. Calculation results showed that both the APROS containment and the 6-equation model could model the hydrogen stratification in the THAI test well, if the vertical nodalisation was dense enough. However, in more complicated cases, the numerical diffusion may distort the results. Calculation of light gas stratification could be probably improved by applying the second order discretisation scheme for the modelling of gas flows. If the gas flows are relatively high, the convection term of the momentum equation is necessary to model the pressure differences between the adjacent nodes reasonably.

Development of an HTR-10 model in the Serpent reactor physics code

The use of exact coordinates of pebbles and fuel particles of pebble bed reactor modelling becoming possible in Monte Carlo reactor physics calculations is an important development step. This allows exact modelling of pebble bed reactors with realistic pebble beds without the placing of pebbles in regular lattices. In this study the multiplication coefficient of the HTR-10 pebble bed reactor is calculated with the Serpent reactor physics code and, using this multiplication coefficient, the amount of pebbles required for the critical load of the reactor. The multiplication coefficient is calculated using pebble beds produced with the discrete element method and three different material libraries in order to compare the results. The received results are lower than those from measured at the experimental reactor and somewhat lower than those gained with other codes in earlier studies.

Reinventing the third way : towards new forms of economic and democratic conduct

Avhandlingen studerar samspelet mellan det politiska och det ekonomiska systemet genom det föregående seklet, med speciellt fokus på den nyliberala omdaning som utspelats de senaste tre årtiondena. Med en liberaliserad ekonomi och en individualiserad människa måste också det politiska systemet utformas på ett annat sätt. Gradvisa förändringar har varit synliga, som den växande nätverksorganiseringen, dvs. att olika typer av utvecklingspolitik allt mer genomförs som ett samspel mellan samhällssektorerna, istället för att enbart utföras av den offentliga sektorn som tidigare. Genom fyra fallstudier i Österbotten demonstreras hur arenor för samverkan kan konstrueras i enlighet med vad den aktuella frågan kräver. Ett exempel är det innovationsnätverk som skapats i Karleby-Jakobstad-regionen, där offentliga och privata intressenter deltar, och som samtidigt bryter traditionella administrativa gränser. Ett annat mer negativt exempel är omstruktureringsprocessen i Kaskö-regionen eft er Metsä-Botnia-fabrikens nedläggning, där småkommunproblemet tillsammans med att den privata intressenten inte haft skyldighet att samverka lett till att en tillräckligt regionalt förankrad arena för en långsiktig utvecklingspolitik inte har kunnat skapas. Det här visar på trögheten i det finska systemet, där en stark enhetsstat och en splittrad kommunal nivå ur ett historiskt perspektiv hindrat flexibla anpassningar till samhällsförändringar. Avhandlingen visar att nätverksorganiseringen bör vara en integrerad del av de representativa strukturerna för att kunna påverka processernas utfall. Avhandlingen visar framförallt att deltagande och funktionellt definierade regionala och lokala arenor har stor potential, både ekonomiskt och demokratiskt. Det handlar om att skapa en kultur med aktiverade och engagerade medborgare, vilket står i kontrast till det allt mer passiverande representativa systemet. ---------------------------------------- Väitöskirja tutkii viime vuosisadan poliittisen ja taloudellisen järjestelmän vuorovaikutusta keskittyen erityisesti kolmen viimeisen vuosikymmenen uusliberaaliseen muutokseen. Talouden liberalisoituminen ja ihmisen individualisoituminen edellyttävät myös poliittisen järjestelmän mukautumista. Asteittaisia muutoksia on ollut havaittavissa, kuten kasvava verkosto-organisaatio, toisin sanoen eri alojen kehityspolitiikkaa toteutetaan yhä enemmän eri yhteiskuntasektoreiden vuorovaikutuksena, kun aikaisemmin ainoastaan julkinen sektori vastasi kehityspolitiikan toteuttamisesta. Pohjanmaan maakunnan neljän tapaustutkimuksen avulla osoitetaan, miten vuorovaikutusareena voidaan rakentaa kulloinkin ajankohtaisen asiakokonaisuuden ympärille. Tästä esimerkkinä on Kokkola-Pietarsaari –alueen innovaatioverkosto, johon osallistuvat sekä julkiset että yksityiset sidosryhmät ja joka samalla rikkoo perinteisiä hallinnollisia rajoja. Toinen, kielteisempi esimerkki on Kaskisten alueen rakennemu utosprosessi Metsä-Botnian tehtaan sulkemisen jälkeen. Siellä pienkuntaongelma yhdistettynä siihen, että yksityinen sidosryhmä ei ole ollut velvollinen tekemään yhteistyötä, on johtanut siihen, että ei ole kyetty luomaan alueen pitkäaikaiseen kehittämiseen sitoutunutta vuorovaikutusareenaa. Tämä osoittaa suomalaisen järjestelmän kankeuden, jossa historiallisesta näkökulmasta vahva yhtenäinen valtio ja hajanainen kuntataso estävät joustavan yhteiskuntamuutoksiin sopeutumisen. Väitöskirja osoittaa, että verkosto-organisaation on oltava yhteiskunnassa vaikuttaviin rakenteisiin integroitu osa, jotta se voi vaikuttaa prosessien tuloksiin. Väitöskirja osoittaa ennen kaikkea, että osallistuvilla ja toiminnallisesti määritellyillä alueellisilla ja paikallisilla areenoilla on suuri taloudellinen ja demokraattinen potentiaali. Passivoivan edustavan järjestelmän tilalle on luotava aktiivisten ja tavoitteisiin sitoutuneiden kansalaisten vuorovaikutusjärjestelmä.

Resolutions reported by the Military Committee, expressive of the thanks of Congress to Major General Jackson, and the troops under his command, for their gallantry and good conduct, in the defence of New Orleans.--

February 13, 1815. Printed by order of the Senate of the United States.

Resolutions reported by the Military Committee, expressive of the thanks of Congress to Major General Jackson, and the troops under his command, for their gallantry and good conduct, in the defence of New Orleans

February 13, 1815. Printed by order of the Senate of the United States. Printed by Roger C. Weightman