The deployment of advanced nuclear technologies, such as small modular reactors (SMRs), microreactors and advanced large reactors, presents a promising yet complex vision of the future as these technologies look to support the growth in electricity demand, both in the USA and globally, and potentially have the capability to transform the energy sector.

 

One key enabling technology transition in nuclear power plant (NPP) technology is the move to adopt digital technologies for instrumentation and controls (I&C).  The successful deployment and operation of new nuclear reactors, in the USA, hinges on data which can be trusted.  To enable robust and economical deployment of new reactors, the industry is increasingly embracing digital technology with the aim of constructing an integrated digital ecosystem that can support the entire lifecycle of nuclear plants.  This digital environment could bring together aspects of plant operations and control, as well as online monitoring, diagnostics and prognostics.

 

This talk reviews the state-of‑the-art for the online monitoring capabilities and integrated I&C enabling NPP diagnostics and prognostics, which starts to bring together data and insights from process parameters and those from online monitoring.  It will cover some of what is in a recent report prepared for the US NRC.

Leonard J. Bond is now Professor Emeritus, Aerospace Engineering, at Iowa State University and Director of Research and Development at Sonogen Medical Inc, Baltimore, Maryland. He has extensive experience as an academic, in industry and national laboratories. Among other positions he was a PNNL Laboratory Fellow.  After retiring, for the first time, he joined Iowa State University (ISU) as Director of the Center for NDE (CNDE) in 2012, and Professor of both Aerospace Engineering and Mechanical Engineering.  He remains active as a consultant and working with Sonogen Medical.

Dr. Bond is a Fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics (UK), and a Senior Member of the IEEE. He has been author or co-author for  27 book chapters, 17 books (most as editor), more than 95 peer reviewed journal papers and more than 200 papers in conference proceedings. He holds 10 patents and is co-author on the recent 4th edition of the standard text “Ultrasonics,” Ensminger and Bond, published in 2024.

 Dr. Bond graduated with his B.Sc, in Applied Physics in 1974 and his Ph.D. in Physics, in 1978, from the City University London.