Background
In the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan, nuclear power reactor safety is under heightened scrutiny in the United States and worldwide. Concurrent with safety issues, power reactors remain under continual operational evaluation to assess their financial competitiveness in a deregulated electricity marketplace. The financial benefits of power uprates, longer operating cycles and higher capacity factors are intertwined with the competing burdens of operations/maintenance considerations and regulatory requirements for a defense-in-depth design basis supported by a robust safety culture. Furthermore, the design basis will change (in some aspects significantly) in response to forthcoming NRC regulations that address the Near-Term Task Force recommendations stemming from review of insights from the Fukushima Daiichi accident.
These competing considerations must be addressed with an industry workforce that is shrinking and undergoing significant turn-over during the generational shift with the ever-present specter of loss of critical skills during this transition. Simultaneously, the physical plant is aging, with some of the U.S. units moving into their post-40-year life extension period.
These evolving challenges place nuclear power plant support products/services at the forefront of industry needs and nuclear plant safety.
Proper application of power plant support products/services, such as analysis, can prevent issues from arising by predicting system response and comparing this response with system technical specifications to assure that the system remains compliant with the specifications. Fauske and Associates is here to help you increase your nuclear plant safety.
For issues that already exist, analysis can assist in the mitigation or resolution of the issue by demonstrating the influence of the as-found condition on plant operations, licensing, and safety. This provides technical insight that facilitates informed decision-making by the plant staff and management. Such insights are also a benefit to subsequent interactions between the plant personnel and the NRC staff since insights
The aforementioned benefits are not confined to the analysis service. Rather, the other assets within plant support products/services (including but not limited to hydraulics testing, engineered components and equipment qualification) can yield corresponding benefits for issue prevention, mitigation or resolution.
Fauske & Associates, LLC (FAI) is an international engineering consulting firm, specializing in the application of physical fundamentals to the resolution of technical problems in the nuclear industry. Founded in 1980, FAI is a wholly owned subsidiary of Westinghouse Electric Company, LLC. FAI is recognized worldwide for phenomenological modeling related to prevention and accommodation of nuclear plant accidents. It is particularly noteworthy for its extensive participation in the detailed diagnosis of the world’s major accidents at Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima Daiichi. This experience culminated in creation/acquisition of diverse resources to address a myriad of plant support related issues.
Past and present customers include U.S.-based and international BWR, PWR, VVER, and PWR-HWR operators in nearly all countries with power reactor programs. The reactor vendors and industry organizations, such as EPRI and NEI, are also customers.
Due to the diversity of offerings, the organization is categorized according to generally-recognized functional areas within the nuclear power and decontamination/decommissioning industries. Specific capabilities may appear in multiple functional areas. Selection of a specific capability will provide additional details regarding this capability.