SCI 489 Milestone 1

It is generally accepted that the failure rate for engineered dams is approximately 0.0001 failures per dam-year. This number is based on overall data that ignore the contributions of specific events like storms or the differences between different types of dams and their design, construction, and operational history. In the case of commercial nuclear power plants, the core meltdown is an event comparable to dam failure. There have been 5 core meltdowns in full-scale, commercial nuclear power plants (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and three units at Fukushima), and there have been about 18,000 reactor-years of operating commercial nuclear power plants since the early 1960s. a) What is the estimated rate of failure for commercial nuclear power plants in failures per reactor-year? b) The design philosophy for systems and components in nuclear power plants is that the designer should demonstrate that the probability of failure that would release radioactivity is less than 1 x 107 per year.…

TOPIC: Power Systems, Power Plants & IlluminationINSTRUCTIONS:- Answer in this format: Given, Illustration, Required Conversion, Solution, Final Answer.- Step-by-step solution, do not skip even simple calculations to avoid confusion.- If answered in written form, make sure it is readable.PROBLEM: A generating station has two 50 MW units each running for 8,500 hours in a year and one 30 MW unit running for 1,250 hours in one year. The station output is 650 x 106 kWh per year. Calculate the utilization factor. 0.732 0.653 0.811 0.795

QUESTION 6 ELECTRICITY GENERATION IN SOUTH AFRICA 6.1 Read the text below and answer the questions that follow. Nuclear fission is the release of energy that occurs when a radioactive element such as uranium is split into other atoms. South Africa's main coal reserves are concentrated in Mpumalanga. Because moving coal or electricity over long distances is inefficient, it was decided in the mid-1970s to build a nuclear power station at Koeberg near Cape Tawn in the Westem Cape. A nuclear power station uses radicactive fuel, usually uranium-235, which is placed in a reactor. Nuclear waste is radioactive because the splitting of uranium atoms also reieases gamma radiation. These gamma rays are similar to x-rays and can cause bums, cancer and genetic mutations in living things. They can only be slowed or stopped thick walls of concrete, lead, or packed ground. It is therefore very important that nuclear waste is disposed of correctly, so that it does not contaminate the environment or…

Sustainable energy folks are investigating the possibility of creating super sized banks of capacitors that store electrical energy during low demand times so that it can be used during peak demand times. Suppose such a capacitor was designed to deliver 3.50 Megawatts for a period of 8.00 hours. (1 Megawatt is 1 million Watts). By how much would this capacitor bank's mass decrease as it is discharged? ________ kg

Q4//A// Three 20 MVA generators, each with 0.15 pu reactance, are connected through three reactors to a common bus-bar of voltage IIKV. Each feeder connected to the generator side of a reactor has 200 MVA circuit breaker. Determine the minimum value of reactor reactance.

Analyse several voltage and current situations in different loading scenarios in a simplified radial (transformer to consumption) medium-voltage power system example. There are only 2 nodes in the 35 kV line – node 0 from the 110/35 kV and node 1 with one consumer. The physical characteristics of the line and the loading scenarios are individualized for each student – please see the attached file Excel “WM9P3 Task1 data” for your particular data set.  Briefly reflect on the complexity of the calculations for known input or output voltage, as well as for fixed or voltage-dependent consumption in this simple power system model.  Analyse and discuss the sensitivity of the voltage drop [in % of amplitude and the degrees of phase] with respect to the current level [in %] and to the power factor.

The Chocolate Crumb Mystery Explosions ignited by electrostatic discharges (sparks) constitute a serious danger in facilities handling grain or powder. Such an explosion occurred in chocolate crumb powder at a biscuit factory in the 1970s. Workers usually emptied newly delivered sacks of the powder into a loading bin, from which it was blown through electrically grounded plastic pipes to a silo for storage. Somewhere along this route, two conditions for an explosion were met: 1. The magnitude of an electric field became 3.0 x 106 N/C or greater, so that electrical breakdown and thus sparking could occur. 2. The energy of a spark was 150 mJ or greater so that it could ignite the powder explosively. Let us check for the first condition in the powder flow through the plastic pipes. Suppose a stream of negatively charged powder was blown through a cylindrical pipe of radius R = 5.0 cm. Assume that the powder and its charge were spread uniformly through the pipe with a volume charge density…

Which of the following is a true statement concerning the production of electricity in conventional nuclear power plants using fission reactors?     New nuclear power plants will be built without containment structures, due to the increased insulation in the reactor core. New nuclear power plants will be built without containment structures, due to the increased insulation in the reactor core. A Thermal energy is converted into mechanical energy and then to electrical energy, as in coal-burning power plants. Thermal energy is converted into mechanical energy and then to electrical energy, as in coal-burning power plants. B Regularly scheduled releases of radioactive gases during production are well below the maximum contamination levels set by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). Regularly scheduled releases of radioactive gases during production are well below the maximum contamination levels set by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). C Nuclear…

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