Friday 12 February 2016

Post 1 : Let's get started!

Dear readers,

I am Alberto GONZALEZ MERINO and this is my new blog! If you are interested in the research and development in general and the nuclear power and uncertainty analysis in particular, this is your place! You are more than welcome! Take a seat; I hope we will have a great time!

This blog is aimed to serve as a diffusion channel where I will post my thoughts, experiences, advances and little contributions to the domain. If you want to find out more about me/this blog, please feel free to contact me at gonzalez.alberto@ensa.es

First of all, I would like to briefly introduce myself. Within 2007 and 2012 I studied and earned a double Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from both “Escuela de Caminos, Canales y Puertos” in Santander and “Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées” in Paris. During this high excellence exchange program I was granted with several public and private academic achievement awards.

Right after my graduation, I made the choice to start working as a research and project engineer for a small French multinational company dedicate to inventing, designing, manufacturing and installing Fusegates® worldwide. During those years I have been working in different international projects all over the 5 continents where I have acquired a useful experience in FEM structural analysis, and in stability assessments against sliding and overturning in normal, degraded and seismic conditions.

Finally, I enrolled the TRUSS program in October 2015 as an Early Stage Researcher in charge of the project No.3: “Reduction of uncertainty in design of free standing nuclear spent fuel rack”.  As you probably already know, Racks are used in the first step of the waste management process, during the wet storage. They are structures designed to hold nuclear spent fuel assemblies removed from the Nuclear Power Reactor after having been irradiated. Their design deals with a fluid-structure interaction problem, a transient dynamic response and a very highly nonlinear behavior.

Quantifying the uncertainties in its design is a troubling safety issue for the nuclear regulatory authorities. The tricky underwater seismic response remains as complex as crucial. In order to achieve that goal I will be helped by M. Arturo Gonzalez from University College of Dublin and by M. Luis Costas from Equipos Nucleares (ENSA).  In the following picture  you can see my industrial supervisor M. Costas and me in my first day in the job. 

What a great team!

  
I am integrated within the Design & Analysis department of ENSA, a leader company in the Spanish nuclear field. From its location in the Bay of Santander (Cantabria), they design, manufacture and supply large nuclear components for Nuclear Power Plants worldwide. In addition to racks, they have a renowned experience in reactor vessels, steam generators, heat exchangers, casks for fuel storage and transportation, etc.

ENSA's facilities

If you want to learn more about the quality of its products and their high-tech manufacturing processes, fell free to check out ENSA website (www.ensa.es). There, you will note their investment regarding the R+D+I activities and its Advanced Technology Center with accredited laboratories.

See you down here soon!

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