ZIRAT PROGRAMME

ZIRAT continues to provide excellent review of latest information

Aidan Cole-Baker
Rolls-Royce

An interesting seminar with very useful information and a close overview of the state of art of nuclear fuel. I will recommend the seminar to my colleagues.

Ignacio Collazo
Iberdrola

Well done, very good seminar. Excellent speakers.

Armando Pagani & Markus Ammon
Gösgen

You get a condensed experience, or knowledge, about all recent conferences and the newest technology updates

Frank Holzgrewe
BKW

The ZIRAT Seminar is very helpful to develop our work in the fuel department

Jorge Benavides
CNAT

The ZIRAT Programme is very unique. All that is interesting for the end user, the utility, is here presented.

Jean-Paul Dalleur
Tractebel

Excellent reference material for our new scientists and engineers and valuable resource for scientists like myself who wish to stay current with advances in nuclear materials R&D
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Malcolm Griffiths
Canadian National Laboratories (former AECL)

We find ZIRAT a great help and, in a way, it’s like having an extra person in the team
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Ted Darby
Rolls-Royce

I can then attend one meeting at a great venue with ZIRAT experts that present the information in one meeting at a pace and level that I understand. I then get a more detailed document in the annual report for reference.
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Matt Eyre
Exelon Corp.

A good opportunity to learn issues which are very close to practical application

Frank Holzgrewe
BKW

The ZIRAT meeting exceeded my expectations. The most valuable component of the meeting was the ability to speak directly with the ANT International experts. The depth of knowledge and understanding of all speakers in the ANT network is terrific. The size of the meeting was perfect.

Markus Piro
Canadian Nuclear Laboratories

The ZIRAT Seminar is very helpful to develop our work in the fuel department

Christian Hellwig
Axpo

The entire seminar was excellent.

Pablo Vizcaino
CNEA

Overall a very good meeting

Ram Bajaj
Bechtel Marine Propulsion Corporation

Excellent meeting… as usual.

Frank Holzgrewe
BKW

Great ZIRAT conference!

Leif Michelsson
TVO

ZIRAT Reports are excellent

Michael Brown
Fuelco

Excellent conference this year

Mike Keck
Tennessee Valley Authority

ANTIA SEMINARS

Excellent presentation material given in a thoroughly professional manner. Excellent interaction with regard to answering the questions raised by the audience

Christopher Smith
Rolls-Royce

Everything was very good. Interesting presentations with a lot of material. It is a big area to cover.

Birgitta Gustafsson
OKG

Excellent and informative. Gave me a lot of useful information to think about and in some cases answered questions I’ve been thinking about for a while

Peter Honniball
Rolls-Royce

Especially I liked the workshop, where we could put in in our own experience, discuss and work towards a solution

Frank Holzgrewe
BKW

The kind of information that have been given during these seminars is just not available currently at the universities

Kari Mäkelä
STUK

Very good impression in general, especially the high knowledge level of the speakers.

Irene de Navas Gutiérrez
ENUSA

The seminar topics were so interesting that I would have liked the seminar to be longer

Kaisa Pellinen
Fortum

The theoretical information was huge and amazing as well as the knowledge of the speakers

Jesus Hernando Perez
Iberdrola

With these teachers, who are experts in their fields, you can learn a lot very quickly

Sergio de María Pablo
Enusa

It´s important that the lecturers here represent experience from different plant types

Rautio Satu
Loviisa PP, Fortum

The seminar fitted my needs very well.

Mario Tomekovic
NEK

Very thorough and broad coverage; excellent!

Tina Klasen
Axpo

Very good seminar, keep on organising it!

Violeta Calic
NEK

The lecturers are not always in total agreement, but that´s a great basis for discussion and also insigh

Gido Goulooze
EPZ

I learned a lot about chemistry in a plant

Magdalena Wilzynska
KKL

I think that the seminar is excellent both in terms of the issues presented and the presenters

Pablo Vizcaino
Enusa

It’s a good overview of what is going on in the fuel and a good introduction for people who are relatively “new” in the fuel business.

Theo van Bloois
EPZ

An excellent seminar, it was very useful for me

Jolanda Cappaert-de Vos
EPZ

The seminar approach was very practical and well put together. The summaries, priorities and useful tips were very good

Jenni Laine
STUK

It´s a good opportunity to get a general view of degradation mechanisms, solutions, modeling etc.

Juan de Dios Sánchez Zapata
Iberdrola

Quite a lot of the background and the contacts I got here can help me in the process

Machiel Bos
EPZ

The lecturers are top of the class, able to explain their knowledge in a very clear way

Laura Taivalaho
STUK

This Seminar has provided me with an extremely valuable overview of materials behaviour in-reactor

Peter Honniball
Rolls-Royce

Very good seminar

Göran Bergshem
Vattenfall

Lecturers are very good and professional

Jari Vaittinen
TVO

The Seminar provided excellent balance between coverage and depth, with detailed information and useful data that you can work with on a professional level

Tina Klasen
Axpo

I didn´t have that much information on stress corrosion cracking before I came here

MJ Schroevers
EPZ

In four days you get a compressed view over the complete field

Tim Delorme
EPZ

The seminar is very good, especially for young people coming into the nuclear field

Raymond van Beusekom
EPZ

LCC PROGRAMME

Excellent reference material for our new scientists and engineers and valuable resource for scientists like myself who wish to stay current with advances in nuclear materials R&D
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Malcolm Griffiths
Canadian National Laboratories (former AECL)

The long experience of the LCC Expert Team provides useful information for “sunny and cloudy days” of a chemist job!
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Michael Bolz
NPP Philippsburg

For new engineers and chemists, this could be a very useful training tool. For experts in a given field, knowledge of experience in other related fields facilitates improvements in their own fields.
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Jayashri N. Iyer
Westinghouse Electric Company

A good place to have opinion and sometimes the opportunity to check in some depths or even short consultations

Juan de Dios Sánchez Zapata
Iberdrola

One of the main advantages with these seminars is the contacts you can make with the experts

Niels van Dijke
EPZ

An opportunity to share experiences with colleagues from other nuclear plants

Ana Isabel Muñoz and Carlos Arias
CNAT

ANT International provides excellent material for education, this supports the very important transfer of knowledge in times when alternation of generation becomes a problem in many nuclear power plants
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Bernt Bengtsson
Vattenfall

Very good seminar, especially for “beginners” in the field and a good opportunity to meet experts and fellow colleagues from other plants.

Lena Johansson
Axpo

The LCC Seminar has been very enjoyable and informative. It has broadened my understanding of many topics and has given me ideas/research to explore in the near future.

John McGrady
University of Manchester

A perfect balance between the theoretical knowledge and explanation of the fundamental facts and their practical application
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Juan de Dios Sánchez
Iberdrola

Very insightful and varied presentations. Much appreciated.

Robin Aldworth
EDF

LCC10 was one of the best LCC conferences ever

Christoph Weber
BKW

Excellent conference, very well organized. Plenty of time for discussions outside of the presentations.

Heather Cox
Rolls-Royce

TAILORED SEMINARS

Useful for the day to day business
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Dr. Andre Koch
KGG Power Plant

Excellent intro to the world of Zirconium
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Dr. Todd Allen
INL and the University of Wisconsin

An excellent seminar with a lot of interaction with the audience

Juan de Dios Sánchez Zapata
Iberdrola

Two days may have saved months of work
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Dr Todd Allen
INL and the University of Wisconsin

A great way to learn the fuel fabrication process
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Matt Kirkland
Fermi 2 NPP

The Seminar provides the information our organization is interested in and the direct dialogue with the experts is of great importance for the effectiveness of the progress of knowledge
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Wilhelm Graf
GNS

The lecture brought us what we hoped it would bring and it made the Report much more valuable for us.
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Menno Crajé
NPP Borssele

For me, it was a very useful class and I would recommend it for any utility engineer that are currently involved in core design or are considering it
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Malcolm B. Smith
Callaway NPP

This seminar is more like a discussion forum at high technical level

Cristina Muñoz-Reja Ruiz
Enusa

The seminar was conducted in an open manner with plenty of interaction
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Dr. Yang-Pi Lin
Global Nuclear Fuel

LCC Tailored Seminar of great value to a new generation of engineers
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Milan Simončič and Željko Kovač
Krško NPP

IZNA PROGRAMME

My company joined the IZNA Program in year 2003 starting with the IZNA1 and IZNA2. Since that year until now, products offered by ANT International have been one of the main source of information for the training of our new engineers.
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Cristina Muñoz-Reja Ruiz
Enusa

The Seminar was attended by members of GNF’s Materials Technology and Fuel Reliability team as well as researchers interested in Zircaloy corrosion at GE’s Global Research Center.
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Dr. Yang-Pi Lin
Global Nuclear Fuel

HANDBOOKS & REPORTS

As responsible for the manufacturing follow-up done by Vattenfall Fuel I have been very pleased with the FFPH (Fuel Fabrication Process Handbook) so far, and it is been used actively within our company. It is a very readable textbook for engineers with a basic interest in nuclear fuel. To have it on our computer server gives opportunities for selfstudies. We have to introduce new people to the area of fabrication follow-up; the most experienced people are soon retiring or needed for other tasks. In our competence-training program we use the FFPH as well as teaching by fuel vendors and hands on training by our experienced specialists.

The FFPH has been a valuable tool because it presents the basic background in a systematic and pedagogical manner. The computer interface has been very practical, because it can serve as an online look up dictionary. We have to perform our manufacturing follow-up in a systematic and logical manner. For this reason we have recently made a detailed walkthrough of our process descriptions and instructions.

The FFPH turned out to be a good reference tool because it already provides the basics for systematism with its checklist type of approach. The experienced and knowledgeable authors are our assurance for the quality and completeness of the material. Nevertheless we had many and vivid discussions on what and how we should actually follow up in order to convince ourselves of the flawlessness of the final products.

My only problem so far is that the attractive layout and the well balanced text and figure material means that people like to borrow the book from my desk. But I decided to live with that.

Jan Almberger
Vattenfall Fuel (retired)

I began auditing fuel fabrication processes in 1983. I was trained on quality assurance audit techniques, but there were essentially no sources available to learn the intricacies of fuel fabrication. Therefore, I entered the school of ‘learning by experience’ and we all know that ‘experience’ is something you acquire after you need it! Fortunately, I did have a good mentor. It is now 2008. I have acquired twenty-five years of experience and I am now the mentor for our junior engineers. Fortunately for them, we have a great resource available in the Fuel Fabrication Process Handbook.

This handbook contains the what, why and how to perform oversight of fuel fabrication processes. It reviews the processing of raw uranium and zirconium, fabrication of components and the production of the completed fuel assembly. The handbook also contains a description of fuel assembly types, qualification programs and quality assurance systems. For example, the pellet fabrication section discusses the preparation of the uranium dioxide powder, and the pressing, sintering, grinding and inspection of the pellet. Each section discusses the process parameters that influence the characteristics and quality of the final product. A recommendation of priority items to be audited is provided at the conclusion of the section.

The authors of this handbook have condensed decades of experience into a single volume. I make sure that any new engineer becomes familiar with the handbook before attempting to audit a fuel fabrication process. Further, I never leave home without it when I am performing an audit. It has become an invaluable reference to ensure that I am auditing the important characteristics of fuel fabrication.

Scott D. Ferguson
Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation

The MBCR (Management of BWR Control Rods) is, as all reports by ANT International, an excellent handbook that offers a complete overview of all there is to know about control rods in BWR reactors. After a systematic, didactic and enjoyable introduction of the basic concepts, very useful for beginners or forgetful veterans like me, MBCR provides a complete and comprehensive compendium to the current state of the art knowledge in this field. All the topics are presented clearly, from the BWR control rod designs and operation criteria to the rod material sensitization by effect of irradiation. The text also describes in detail the degradation and failure mechanisms and the radiochemical effluents behavior.

MBCR is indispensable for expert engineers responsible for the control rod management so they can make optimum use of the rod in order to reduce the direct replacement and waste disposal costs, while ensuring an efficient and safety plant operation. The high quality of the text is the result of great experience and knowledge of the authors, Dr. Kurt-Åke Magnusson and Mr. Klas Lundgren that have a lifetime of experience in the nuclear materials technology area. This handbook can be read cover to cover for those who seek to understand the BWR control rods in its entirety, and can also be used as a reference source to look up useful facts and information concerning specific areas. Together with the hardcover book a CD with the book in a searchable pdf format is delivered. It is very useful in the e-book reader, and makes the book easy accessible.

Manuel Albendea
Iberdrola

Fuel Design Review Handbook (FDRH) is a unique handbook. It contains not only features of various fuel designs but also fuel design fundamentals, design audits and recent topics in nuclear fuel technology.

The authors of this handbook have condensed decades of experience in a single volume. I am sure any new engineer who enters the fuel design field will find this handbook very useful. In this regard, it seems quite successful.

One specific thing that I would like to mention is the really beautiful and colorful layout of this handbook which also characterizes all ANT deliverables even in the electronic format!

Hajime Fujii
Mitsubishi Nuclear Fuel Co. Ltd.