An Assessment of the Safety Factors and Uncertainties in the Fatigue Rules of the RCC-M Code Through the Benchmark With the EN-13445-3 Standard

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Métais ◽  
Stéphan Courtin ◽  
Manuela Triay ◽  
François Billon ◽  
Pascal Duranton ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Group ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Safety Margin ◽  
Operating Experience ◽  
Nuclear Industry ◽  
Mechanical Equipment ◽  
Safety Factors ◽  
Pressurized Water ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Uk

The RCC-M code [1] is a well recognized international code and provides rules for the design and the construction of mechanical equipment for pressurized water reactors. It is used today for the nuclear industry exclusively, in countries such as France, South Africa and China and it is the basis for the design of the UK EPR to be built in Hinkley Point. The RCC-M code’s fatigue rules emanate from the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code and are hence very similar, albeit they have evolved in their own way over time to include some R&D results and other evolutions. These rules are published by AFCEN which involves a wide range of international organizations from the nuclear industry such as Apave, Areva, Bureau Veritas, CEA, DCNS, EDF, EDF Energy, ONET-MHI, Rolls-Royce and Westinghouse. The EN-13445-3 [2] is a European standard which is mostly in use today in the conventional industry. Its fatigue rules are a compilation of rules from various national European codes, such as the German AD-Merkblatt, the British Standards, the Eurocodes for civil works and the French CODAP. The rules for fatigue are compiled in Chapters 17 and 18 of EN-13445-3 and have been the result of the work of contributors from major European organizations from the nuclear, oil and gas, chemical and mechanical industries: these include, among others, Areva, the Linde Group, CETIM, TÜV, and the TWI (The Welding Institute). Since the beginning of 2015, AFCEN has created a technical Working Group (WG) on the topic of fatigue with the objective of identifying the Safety Factors and Uncertainties in Fatigue analyses (SFUF) and of potentially proposing improvements in the existing fatigue rules of the code. Nevertheless, the explicit quantification of safety factors and uncertainties in fatigue is an extremely difficult task to perform for fatigue analyses without a comparison to the operating experience or in relation to another code or standard. Historically, the approach of the code in fatigue has indeed been to add conservatism at each step of the analyses which has resulted in a difficult quantification of the overall safety margin in the analyses. To fulfill its mission, the working group has deemed necessary to lead a benchmark with the EN-13445-3 standard given its wide use through other industries. Two cases were identified: either the comparison with EN-13445-3 is possible and in this case, the identification of safety factors and uncertainties is performed in relation to this standard; either the comparison is not possible, in which case the overall conservatism of the RCC-M code is evaluated in relation with operating experience, test results, literature, etc... This paper aims at describing the overall work of the group and focuses more specifically on the results obtained through the benchmark with the EN-13445-3 standard.

Browse to Bonaparte stratigraphic evaluation

2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 483
Author(s):  
Marcus Lemberger ◽  
James Stockley ◽  
Tim Gibbons
Keyword(s):  
Depositional Environment ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Structural Evolution ◽  
North West ◽  
Integrated Environment ◽  
Public Data ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Well Data ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Gas Bearing

After an initial 2010 stratigraphic, depositional environment and facies determination study of 75 wells in the Browse Basin, TGS has pushed this high-resolution project north into the Bonaparte Basin area. The study incorporates a further 165 wells located across the Ashmore Platform, Vulcan Sub-basin, Londonderry High, Malita and Calder Grabens, Sahul and Flamingo synclines, Laminara and Flamingo highs, Sahul Platform, Troubadour Terrace, and offshore Petrel Sub-basin areas. This multi-basin project has combined all the selected relevant public data into one interpretation study and is delivered in an integrated environment—wells are standardised and sequences interpreted. Once depositional environment and facies are allocated, multi-element maps are produced showing how the basin environments change through time and structural evolution. Stratigraphic interpretation has determined 37 sequences and 32 associated facies maps. Both Browse Basin (140,000 km2) and Bonaparte Basin (270,000 km2) are relatively less explored and at different ages in their exploration life-cycle. Both have proved to be oil and gas bearing across numerous different stratigraphic ages with a wide range of trapping and reservoir methods. This study aims to further aid North West Shelf exploration by delineating, among other facets, the presence or otherwise of rocks with reservoir and seal potential and by identifying structural elements such as the Petrel Sub-basin salt diapirs. This regional well data stratigraphic approach has been used across all the UK and Norway continental shelf hydrocarbon provinces. TGS sees the Australian North West Shelf as a province where this approach will further assist sub-surface understanding, and hence exploration success.

Discharge Reductions: Value for Money?

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. G. Morley ◽  
J. Waring ◽  
R. Coates ◽  
R. H. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Historical Record ◽  
Nuclear Industry ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Value For Money ◽  
External Pressures ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Current Context ◽  
Key Drivers ◽  
The Uk

The paper uses the historical record of radioactive discharges from BNFL’s Sellafield reprocessing site in the UK and seeks to identify what have been the key drivers for change, particularly over the past 20 years of significant discharge reductions. The paper examines the current context for ongoing and future discharges from the site, including intergovernmental commitments such as the OSPAR Sintra statement and the developing UK policy framework, together with BNFL’s work with a wide range of ‘green’ stakeholders. The paper outlines the principal components of BNFL’s decision-making processes for discharge control and abatement, and how these interact with the relevant external pressures. It then analyses whether the overall drivers and outcomes align with the declared desire of the UK government to ensure that the taxpayer receives value for money in the new national arrangements for managing legacy wastes from the nuclear industry.

ESRC Review

2020 ◽  
pp. 657-698
Author(s):  
Simeon J. Yates ◽  
Jordana Blejmar
Keyword(s):  
Social Research ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Us ◽  
Levels Of Automation ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Technological World ◽  
Ways Of Being

Two workshops were part of the final steps in the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) commissioned Ways of Being in a Digital Age project that is the basis for this Handbook. The ESRC project team coordinated one with the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (ESRC-DSTL) Workshop, “The automation of future roles”; and one with the US National Science Foundation (ESRC-NSF) Workshop, “Changing work, changing lives in the new technological world.” Both workshops sought to explore the key future social science research questions arising for ever greater levels of automation, use of artificial intelligence, and the augmentation of human activity. Participants represented a wide range of disciplinary, professional, government, and nonprofit expertise. This chapter summarizes the separate and then integrated results. First, it summarizes the central social and economic context, the method and project context, and some basic definitional issues. It then identifies 11 priority areas needing further research work that emerged from the intense interactions, discussions, debates, clustering analyses, and integration activities during and after the two workshops. Throughout, it summarizes how subcategories of issues within each cluster relate to central issues (e.g., from users to global to methods) and levels of impacts (from wider social to community and organizational to individual experiences and understandings). Subsections briefly describe each of these 11 areas and their cross-cutting issues and levels. Finally, it provides a detailed Appendix of all the areas, subareas, and their specific questions.

Punk as Folk: Continuities and Tensions in the UK and Beyond

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pete Dale
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Collective Creativity ◽  
Living Tradition ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Uk

Numerous claims have been made by a wide range of commentators that punk is somehow “a folk music” of some kind. Doubtless there are several continuities. Indeed, both tend to encourage amateur music-making, both often have affiliations with the Left, and both emerge at least partly from a collective/anti-competitive approach to music-making. However, there are also significant tensions between punk and folk as ideas/ideals and as applied in practice. Most obviously, punk makes claims to a “year zero” creativity (despite inevitably offering re-presentation of at least some existing elements in every instance), whereas folk music is supposed to carry forward a tradition (which, thankfully, is more recognized in recent decades as a subject-to-change “living tradition” than was the case in folk’s more purist periods). Politically, meanwhile, postwar folk has tended more toward a socialist and/or Marxist orientation, both in the US and UK, whereas punk has at least rhetorically claimed to be in favor of “anarchy” (in the UK, in particular). Collective creativity and competitive tendencies also differ between the two (perceived) genre areas. Although the folk scene’s “floor singer” tradition offers a dispersal of expressive opportunity comparable in some ways to the “anyone can do it” idea that gets associated with punk, the creative expectation of the individual within the group differs between the two. Punk has some similarities to folk, then, but there are tensions, too, and these are well worth examining if one is serious about testing out the common claim, in both folk and punk, that “anyone can do it.”

scholarly journals What If the ‘Anthropocene’ Is Not Formalized as a New Geological Series/Epoch?

Quaternary ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentí Rull
Keyword(s):  
Present State ◽  
Executive Committee ◽  
Working Group ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Environmental Sciences ◽  
International Union ◽  
Quaternary Stratigraphy ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Geological Sciences

In the coming years, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) will submit its proposal on the ‘Anthropocene’ to the Subcommission of Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) and the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) for approval. If approved, the proposal will be sent to the Executive Committee of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) for ratification. If the proposal is approved and ratified, then the ‘Anthropocene’ will be formalized. Currently, the ‘Anthropocene’ is a broadly used term and concept in a wide range of scientific and non-scientific situations, and, for many, the official acceptance of this term is only a matter of time. However, the AWG proposal, in its present state, seems to not fully meet the requirements for a new chronostratigraphic unit. This essay asks what could happen if the current ‘Anthropocene’ proposal is not formalized by the ICS/IUGS. The possible stratigraphic alternatives are evaluated on the basis of the more recent literature and the personal opinions of distinguished AWG, SQS, and ICS members. The eventual impact on environmental sciences and on non-scientific sectors, where the ‘Anthropocene’ seems already firmly rooted and de facto accepted as a new geological epoch, are also discussed. This essay is intended as the editorial introduction to a Quaternary special issue on the topic.

scholarly journals An exploration of migrant women’s perceptions of public health messages to reduce stillbirth in the UK: a qualitative study

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasina Stacey ◽  
Melanie Haith-Cooper ◽  
Nisa Almas ◽  
Charlotte Kenyon
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Perinatal Mortality ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Health Messages ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Public Health Messages ◽  
Associated Risk Factors ◽  
The Uk

Abstract Background Stillbirth is a global public health priority. Within the United Kingdom, perinatal mortality disproportionately impacts Black, Asian and minority ethnic women, and in particular migrant women. Although the explanation for this remains unclear, it is thought to be multidimensional. Improving perinatal mortality is reliant upon raising awareness of stillbirth and its associated risk factors, as well as improving maternity services. The aim of this study was to explore migrant women’s awareness of health messages to reduce stillbirth risk, and how key public health messages can be made more accessible. Method Two semi-structured focus groups and 13 one to one interviews were completed with a purposive sample of 30 migrant women from 18 countries and across 4 NHS Trusts. Results Participants provided an account of their general awareness of stillbirth and recollection of the advice they had been given to reduce the risk of stillbirth both before and during pregnancy. They also suggested approaches to how key messages might be more effectively communicated to migrant women. Conclusions Our study highlights the complexity of discussing stillbirth during pregnancy. The women in this study were found to receive a wide range of advice from family and friends as well as health professionals about how to keep their baby safe in pregnancy, they recommended the development of a range of resources to provide clear and consistent messages. Health professionals, in particular midwives who have developed a trusting relationship with the women will be key to ensuring that public health messages relating to stillbirth reduction are accessible to culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

scholarly journals Redefining peer learning: Role of student entrepreneurs in teaching entrepreneurship in the UK higher education context

2021 ◽  
pp. 095042222110126
Author(s):  
Stella Xu ◽  
Zimu Xu ◽  
Fujia Li ◽  
Arun Sukumar
Keyword(s):  
Student Engagement ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
School Students ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Student Entrepreneurs ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Uk Higher Education

Entrepreneurship-related modules have become increasingly popular over the years, not only among business school students but also among those from other disciplines, including engineering and the arts and humanities. In some circumstances, they are offered as optional modules for students across different faculties and disciplines. While it is beneficial to mix students with different backgrounds, bringing in a wide range of perspectives, there are also challenges relating to course design and student engagement. With these challenges in mind, the authors trialled a new approach in the hope of motivating students from diverse academic and socio-cultural backgrounds to engage more fully in the classroom by utilising student entrepreneurs as guest speakers. The student-centric approach has proved effective in enhancing student engagement, as evidenced by both informal and formal feedback.

scholarly journals Evaluating the efficacy of technical measures: a case study of selection device legislation in the UK Crangon crangon (brown shrimp) fishery

2008 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom L. Catchpole ◽  
Andrew S. Revill ◽  
James Innes ◽  
Sean Pascoe
Keyword(s):  
Brown Shrimp ◽  
Crangon Crangon ◽  
Shrimp Fishery ◽  
The North ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Technical Measures

Abstract Catchpole, T. L., Revill, A. S., Innes, J., and Pascoe, S. 2008. Evaluating the efficacy of technical measures: a case study of selection device legislation in the UK Crangon crangon (brown shrimp) fishery. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 65: 267–275. Bycatch reduction devices are being introduced into a wide range of fisheries, with shrimp and prawn fisheries particularly targeted owing to the heavy discarding common in these fisheries. Although studies are often undertaken to estimate the impact of a technical measure on the fishery before implementation, rarely have the impacts been assessed ex post. Here, the efficacy of the UK legislation pertaining to the use of sievenets in the North Sea Crangon crangon fishery is assessed. Three impacts were evaluated: on fisher behaviour (social), on the level of bycatch (biological), and on vessel profitability (economic). An apparent high level of compliance by skippers was identified despite a low level of enforcement. The estimated reduction in fleet productivity following the introduction of the legislation was 14%, equalling the mean loss of Crangon landings when using sievenets calculated from catch comparison trawls. Sievenets did reduce the unnecessary capture of unwanted marine organisms, but were least effective at reducing 0-group plaice, which make up the largest component of the bycatch. Clearly the legislation has had an effect in the desired direction, but it does not address sufficiently the bycatch issue in the Crangon fishery.

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