For further details about this year's event, please visit the event website.
Please could you briefly explain your role, involvement, and experience with regards to Nuclear Ventilation and the IMechE’s 11th Nuclear Ventilation Conference?
Craig Ricketts (CR): My experience encompasses evaluating the response of US nuclear-grade HEPA filters to mechanical loadings under extreme test conditions. These included simulated tornado pressure pulses and explosive shock waves, as well as airflows of high air humidities that might result from a Loss-of-Coolant Accident in a power plant.
Additional experience includes three decades as a member of particle-filter project teams and the Filtration Subcommittee of ASME’s Committee on Nuclear Air and Gas Treatment (CONAGT).
One project team developed a new AG-1 Code section of qualification test standards for three levels of high-strength axial-flow filters. Also served as a member of a team at Karlsruhe Nuclear Research Centre (now part of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT) that developed and introduced high-strength axial-flow HEPA filters onto the European market in the mid-1980’s.
What, in your experience, has been the biggest roadblock for utilising innovative technologies in your sector?
CR: The field of Nuclear Safety is widely recognized to have a culture that has significantly evolved in practice since initial recognition of the health hazards associated with the handling of radioactive materials. Its highest priority is intrinsically understood to be that of human health and environmental safety.
Notwithstanding manifold improvements adopted over some 100 years, its culture remains by inclination a very conservative and a somewhat regimented one. This is one reason creative ideas that challenge ingrained assumptions and long-standing traditions can face lengthy delays in their acceptance, in some cases for decades.
A secondary hurdle to widespread innovation in the field can be attributed to a retrenchment in the nuclear industry following globally sited accidents in power plants and the allocation of resources away from defense industries at the end of the Cold War, during the last quarter of the 20th century. Subsequent exorbitant cost overruns in nuclear power plant construction and environmental concerns regarding final disposal of nuclear waste have also played roles in limiting growth of nuclear-related industries.
The absence of a growth mindset is recognized in innovation cultures as a precursor to stagnation. Additionally, insufficient numbers of young, dynamic technically educated individuals entering nuclear industries and providing a minimum core of needed innovative talents are also a contributing factor.
What key topics are you excited to discuss at this year's conference?
CR: How high-strength, nuclear-grade HEPA (High Efficiency Particle Air) filters can be economically qualified against stringent test specifications commensurate with their status as crucial structural components of the pressure and containment boundaries within nuclear facilities.
Qualification specifications for conventional filters, i. e. those not having a reinforced glass-fibre medium, provide no solid bases for calculation of meaningful safety margins for filters as structural elements. In contrast, this is typically not the case for relatively permanent ventilation system components such as ductwork, filter housings, and moisture (droplet) separators which are qualified against their structural loading capabilities.
Stringently qualified, high-strength nuclear-grade HEPA filters do have the potential qualification status of permanent system components. And can thereby be used to help quantify filter performance reliability levels in service, under adverse conditions of otherwise high risk.
But the realization of high-strength filters and related qualification standards alone are not sufficient for their full acceptance into practice. They remain yet to be recognized by most standards organizations, manufacturers, users, and regulatory entities alike, as structural components for their qualification.
What would you say are the technologies or applications to watch for the future?
CR: these are as follows:
- The implementation of stringently qualified, high-strength HEPA filters and their across-the-board recognition as crucial structural components in nuclear ventilation systems.
- A pressing question in the glass-fibre filter media industry is how to replace traditionally utilized Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS’s). These suspected-to-be-toxic chemicals are constituents in film coatings applied by spraying filter media to create a high level of surface repellence to liquid water and to water vapor adsorption.
- Also, the potential realization and implementation of processes for cleaning or regenerating nuclear-grade filters in situ.
Who else are you most interested in hearing from on the programme?
CR: The respective presentations of Jason Allen and Jamie Rickert on high-strength filter media, as well as the one by Ian Davies-Kerwin and Jerome Allison on ageing and degradation of ventilation systems and ONR’s approach to regulating innovation are of compelling interest. Moreover, the topic of small modular reactor ventilation systems by Hannah Davies.
Why is it important for engineers to join this conference?
CR: Am much looking forward to attending this Conference for the first time and feel privileged to present on a topic directly tied to insightful R&D investigations at Harwell Laboratories in the mid 1980’s. One resulting seminal advancement of the time was adoption of a glass cloth reinforcement to the otherwise very fragile glass-fibre filter medium. This represented a major milestone to mark the prior four-decade incremental development of High Efficiency Particulate Air (HEPA) filters worldwide.
The roster of speakers and their topics reflect a broad spectrum of expertise and practical experience in the areas of regulation, research & development, ventilation system operations, innovation, and design.
Attendees will gain invaluable insights into how they can help shape the future of nuclear ventilation system design, operations, and regulation based upon current practice and recent lessons learned.
The Nuclear Ventilation 2023 conference will take place on 14-15 November 2023 in Manchester.
Taking place every two years and now in its 11th successive iteration, this two-day conference is the only event of its kind that enables power industry professionals and engineering practitioners from all sectors of the nuclear community to stay abreast of developments in nuclear ventilation within the UK.
For further details about this year's event, please visit the event website.