Sunday, August 17, 2008

LIGHTNING: Here is a response from INPO.

Click on the image to enlarge; hit return to get back here.
Lightning is covered in several entries in my other blog, http://nuclearpowerblog.blogspot.com/.
Right now, the system will not allow me to edit that blog, so please go there for the story of LIGHTNING that is relevant to this letter from INPO.
Below is my response to the above letter.
Robert H. Leyse
P. O. Box 2850
Sun Valley, ID 83353

August 17, 2008

Ronn K. Smith
INPO
Atlanta, GA

Dear Ronn:

Thank you for your letter of August 4, 2008, responding to my request for INPO SER 76-84. I received your letter on August 14, 2008. There was a delay because it was addressed to my street address instead of my P. O. Box.

My feeling is that the long-standing INPO policy is OK; however, your board should consider releasing documents that are aged and insensitive. Also, when NRC references a specific INPO SER in its public documents, that specific INPO SER should then be released to the public.

Now that I have told you how to run INPO, let’s get back to my narrow case. What has driven me nuts for decades is the INPO summary rejection of my NSAC/INPO SIGNIFICANT EVENT, SALEM 1, which was posted by NSAC on 12-AUG-2000. INPO, in a knee-jerk reaction, immediately (within hours) “suggested” the deletion of this entry.

I became aware of the INPO “suggestion” on 27 Aug 1980 and I told NSAC to “…send the completed form to INPO.” I never knew until 3-11-82 that NSAC had trashed my NSAC/INPO SIGNIFICANT EVENT, SALEM 1.

Ronn, maybe for now, INPO may answer the following question: Is the Salem 1 event of 06-08-00 included in INPO SER 76-84?

As an aside, NRC denied my request for the stuff under FOIA. I’ve appealed that and we’ll see what happens.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Where is she today? She was useful in 1957.

Click to enlarge.

Even with enlargement, the caption is hard to decipher. Joyce is, "one of the hippiest girls in the world." She is 18 and smart and goes to Drexel. The men are described as only a few years older than Joyce, "... members of the new generation that is unlocking door after door to reveal the secrets of atomic energy and harness them to useful purposes."

Maybe the youngest is Don Hughes at the far right. However, relative to age 18, those men are really old goats.

Advertising never changes, only the jargon -- hippiest?

Friday, August 15, 2008

Heat Transfer Experiments; Rectangular Channels

Heat Transfer Experiments: Rectangular Channels



General Electric screwed-up. Westinghouse did not. So, let's first look at the correct way to to the job.
Westinghouse (Bettis) issued the following report that includes the correct design for a test section to determine the heat transfer characteristics of a rectangular channel.





The cross section below is the Westinghouse (correct) design for the heat transfer test section.



And the illustration below shows a neat way of installing the test section in apparatus for testing at high pressure (note the insulation to prevent leakage of electric current).
Now that you have seen the correct design, you may read the following that describes the errors in the GE design that led to an erroneous burnout heat transfer correlation. I was at GE (Vallecitos) less than four months when I wrote the following:





My boss at Vallecitos advised me to keep this close to my chest. Well, I talked a bit. Too bad. Several years later when politics pushed me out of Vallecitos, I certainly had no chance for a softer job in San Jose. HOW THINGS WORK!