Mr. Kenneth Epperson

Fuel Material

Mr. Kenny Epperson has been working in the commercial nuclear industry since 1984. He began his career with Virginia Power at North Anna Power Station as a reactor engineer and then a licensed Senior Reactor Operator (SRO) shift technical advisor (STA). In 1989, he began a career with Duke Energy in the corporate office supporting fuel design and analyses. The work involved development, approval, and implementation of NRC licensed methodology for thermal-hydraulic and fuel rod mechanical analyses of reload fuel cycles for seven PWRs. He coauthored two topical reports on statistical DNB analysis methodology and fuel assembly reconstitution. In addition, he assisted two vendors in the development and initial Duke analyses of four new fuel assembly designs and managed the implementation of two Lead Test Assembly (LTA) programs.

In the late 1990’s through the mid 2000’s, he assisted in methodology and application development of the Boron Offset Anomaly (BOA) code. This code was a first of a kind tool that uses an entire PWR system model for evaluating Crud Induced Power Shift, or CIPS, risk. He also was a charter utility member of the EPRI Fuel Reliability Program for PWR crud and served as vice-chair for five years. He participated in the EPRI guideline teams that developed and updated the PWR crud induced corrosion and grid to rod fretting guidelines. Recently he has been involved in development of a EPRI BWR code for fuel crud deposition.

Other special topic experiences include analysis of off-normal reactor system hydraulic events such as unanticipated primary system flow decreases, vessel lower plenum flow anomaly, and hot leg flow switching. He also has provided independent evaluations of fuel failure root cause analyses performed by the fuel vendor. Program manager experiences included implementing an advanced ultrasonic fuel cleaning system at Duke Power on a condensed schedule, from conception to in field use in seven months.