Failure of steam turbine rotors and blades while in service can cause significant damage to the plant and put at risk the safety of personnel. Current inspection techniques result in large operational cost being incurred by the power generator. In response to this challenge, the Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI) of the USA sponsored a project to develop and validate a system for in-situ examination of the blades and connections to enable early detection of defects in pinned-finger low-pressure turbine blades using Digital Radiography (DR) techniques. The project successfully provided a practical, safely deployable DR system which achieved the inspection performance criteria.
The concept of Biometrics has its roots in the 1870s where Alphonse Bertillon devised a system of body measurements to catalogue and identify prisoners in jails in the United States [1]. In this 21st century, automated means of capturing and authenticating users based on their unique traits and the requirement to reliably and securely authenticate users seeking physical access to buildings, through international borders and in ‘Cyberspace’ has never been more paramount. Biometrics can offer a solution to these authentication challenges, bringing with them a reduction in the requirement to remember personal identification number (PINs) and passwords and the number of tokens and identity cards held in possession. Biometrics should also bring with them enhanced confidence in the authenticity of people as it should be much harder to fake physical and behavioral human properties compared with the ease with which passwords and tokens can be stolen and shared. Biometric systems are however not without their problems which present some unique challenges around their adoption and secure implementation. Here the preliminary concepts necessary to understand biometric systems are set out – how they work, their limitations and what challenges exist to their development, implementation and adoption as a reliable and secure authentication mechanism.
Several large-scale battery storage projects have been completed in Great Britain and northern Ireland since 2010, and more are under construction, for applications including reductions in network constraints, integration of renewable energy, provision of frequency response, other ancillary services and improvement of the end user's service. As energy storage systems’ costs decrease, opportunities to use energy storage at all scales become more commercially attractive. Projects in Japan, China and the USA demonstrate that electricity storage technologies can be deployed at large scales, with project sizes of 50 MW or more. Case studies show how energy storage can be used on its own, as a merchant operation, or in conjunction with other assets on the electricity network. Though battery projects have a high profile, are relatively quick to construct and have low operating and maintenance costs, other storage technologies may also be used such as flywheels, thermal cycles and compressed or liquefied air. These different technologies have different operating parameters, which may influence the technology selection for a particular application and careful consideration is required when selecting a location for storage projects, taking into account local conditions. The improvement in performance, and cost reductions indicate increased deployment of electricity storage at different scales and for many applications in the evolving smart grid.
This article discusses the UK critical national infrastructure (CNI), its exposure to cyber risk, the measures and arrangements currently in force to address that risk and suggests some alternative and additional measures to which consideration might be given.
Decommissioning the UK's legacy nuclear facilities that can be over 50 years old is one of the most complex engineering tasks that the UK currently faces. Nuclear decommissioning is difficult as the radiation levels in a vast number of facilities are too high to allow manual operations, so remote or robotic solutions are required. While there have been many successes in remote decommissioning, there are continuing challenges to overcome. Remote solutions need to: be deployed through small penetrations but operate at heights or distances >10 m; operate in restricted and congested environments while completing aggressive operations (such as cutting, shearing or scabbling); and work in high-radiation fields yet be reliable, reusable and disposable. Advanced robotic techniques may provide benefit by reducing the need for centralised communication, enhancing adaptability in uncertain conditions or increasing the productivity and reliability of deployments. This article discusses the common difficulties of remote and robotic decommissioning through examples of legacy operations and current research and development. Though this article does not come to any conclusions, in identifying the challenges of decommissioning legacy facilities, it is anticipated that optimised solutions can be developed.
