ANRC Annual Showcase Event 2019 – Canada (Agenda)

Welcome Remarks and Overview of Nuclear innovation Institute

Frank Saunders, President, Nuclear Innovation Institute

Welcome Remarks and Overview of Advanced Nuclear Research Centre

Duncan Hawthorne, Chairman, Advanced Nuclear Research Centre

Keynote: Re-framing Nuclear as the Future

James Scongack, Executive Vice President Corporate Affairs and Operational Services, Bruce Power

Keynote: UK Innovation Agenda and the Nuclear Industry

Chris Bowbrick, Deputy Director, UK Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Department

Keynote:  What is the ANRC and Why Does it Work?

Professor Graham Wren, FREng., Special Advisor to the Principal and Major Projects Director, University of Strathclyde

Panel: Innovation Landscape to 2050

Leading academics take us on journey to the future, highlighting where research and technology may lead, and start us thinking about how best to capitalize on these opportunities in the nuclear industry.  Hear from experts on the following topics:

Harnessing AI for Industrial Value

There are specific challenges and barriers to the application of AI within industrial environments, which prevents the full business value from being achieved at pace. Recent innovations in the field will be described, with examples of how concepts such as self-organisation, deep learning, transfer learning, and active learning can deliver industrial value in the nuclear industry

Professor Stephen McArthur, Deputy Associate Principal for Research, Knowledge Exchange and Innovation, University of Strathclyde  

Autonomous & Adaptive Inspection Technologies

Non-destructive evaluation (NDE) is critical in ensuring the safe operation of infrastructure across many industrial sectors, with many of the core NDE challenges considered common. One core long-term objective is fully autonomous inspection technologies. This requires technology solutions which are agile and adaptive to the inspection environment. A selection of current research topics will be introduced and how they can impact on this common core objective discussed.

Professor Tony Gachagan, University of Strathclyde  

Wicked Problems Need Wicked Models

Innovation in the nuclear industry presents new challenges for the risk management of engineering assets to ensure productivity, availability and safety.  By framing such challenges as decision problems, we examine the general characteristics of problem types and the role of modelling in providing decision support. Specific examples of similar challenges from other industries provide insight into the important role of knowledge elicitation in both defining wicked problems and structuring wicked models. 

Professor Lesley Walls, University of Strathclyde 

Decommissioning & Radioactive Waste Management

Dr. Joanna Renshaw, Senior Lecturer, University of Strathclyde  

Remarks

Prof. Akira Tokuhiro, Dean & Professor, Faculty of Energy Systems and Nuclear Science, University of Ontario Institute of Technology

Hackathon Teams and Themes

Introduced by Margaret McBeath, Director, Corporate Strategy, Nuclear Promise X

Panel:  Disruptive Technology – Challenges and Opportunities of Breaking Into the Nuclear Industry.

Embracing innovation and new technology means working in new ways, and with new market participants.  This panel will consider how the nuclear industry welcomes new entrants, challenges of accessing the market, and some of the products and services that will shape the future.  Suppliers and technology developers not traditionally involved in nuclear join industry veterans to discuss the barriers to entry to our industry such as finding partners, nuclear grade qualification, and understanding the problems the nuclear industry is trying to solve.

Moderated by Ron Oberth, President Organization of Canadian Nuclear Industries

Hear from Experts:

Kenneth Barclay, Director Sales & Marketing, Additive Metal Manufacturing

Viktoras Borodinas, Innovation Manager, Ontario Power Generation

Michael Chatlani, Vice President, Business Development, Power Systems and Simulation, L3 MAPPS

Catherine Cottrell, Senior Director Product Development, SNC Lavalin

Panel: Collaboration Lessons Learned and Success Stories

We often envisage collaborations as the coming together of like-minded people and organizations.  Increasingly, we’re seeing industry coming together with academia, coming together with government institutions, and suppliers partnering.  This panel will explore some of the challenges in each of these scenarios, as well as what leaders need to do differently to enable collaboration to thrive particularly with external organizations?         

Moderated by: Christina Van Drunen, Director, S&T Strategy and Collaboration, Canadian Nuclear Laboratories

Hear from Experts:

Carla Carmichael, Vice President Project Assurance and Contract Management, OPG

Fred Dermarkar, President, Candu Owner’s Group

Bert Holt, Director, Nuclear Lifetime Programs, Doosan Babcock

Gary Newman, Senior Vice President and Chief Engineer, Bruce Power

Steve Young FIET FIoD, Business Winning Director, Cavendish Nuclear

Parallel session: Maximising Value from Data - Decision Support for Spacer Repositioning

The repositioning process of garter spring spacers is essential for the safe operation of the nuclear reactor and life extension activities, but can be challenging due to possible tube deformations. We develop a decision support tool to aid operators address this challenge.  The tool combines historical empirical data with structured engineering judgement to provide useful information for both planning and conducting the repositioning process. Visualisation allows exploration of empirical databases from past outages to assess successfulness of repositioning and underpins prediction of the relative success of actions. Knowledge representation of the reasoning by experienced operators provides a set of decision rules about possible actions

Professor Lesley Walls, University of Strathclyde  

Parallel session: In Process Welding Project

Traditionally fusion welding of manufactured and repaired components and quality control inspection of such welds are distinctly separate processes in the supply chain, which ultimately limit productivity, throughput and increase re-work. This project seeks to combine both of these practices directly at the point of welding, ultimately addressing the above challenges and producing superior, defect-free, globally-efficient fabrications.

Charles Macleod, Research Student, University of Strathclyde

Parallel session: Automated Assessment of Pressure Tube Defects

Pressure tubes are routinely inspected during outages, where processing and analysing the gathered data in a verifiable and timely manner is essential part of the process. This presentation describes the development of an AI-based system to support the automated analysis of ultrasonic pressure tube data at Bruce Power.

Dr Graeme West, Senior Lecturer, University of Strathclyde

Parallel session: Data Analytic Health Monitoring Frameworks for Transformers and Power Cable

The through lifetime assessment of transformers and power cables is critical for the sustainability of the nuclear generation industry. This project presents data analytic frameworks to improve fault detection and general health assessment of transformer and cable assets. The outputs from the framework may be used to inform decision support activities related to asset lifetime extension and maintenance cost strategies.

Professor Brian Stewart, University of Strathclyde

Parallel session: Applications of Photonics in nuclear generation, decommissioning and waste-storage

The careful generation, manipulation and detection of light has developed Photonics into a major technology over the past decade; so much so that it has been dubbed “the electronics of the 21st century”. Optical based detection techniques are ideally suited to many of the uniquely challenging and timely requirements of the nuclear industry: for instance the spatial quality, spectral purity and wavelength flexibility of emerging laser beams makes them perfect for a variety of stand-off detection applications; optical fibres can be used to detect temperature and mechanical stress within unforgiving industrial environments; and the recent explosion in low-cost microprocessors, coupled with imaging systems, can be used for real-time, autonomous asset management.  In this talk I will outline many of the detection and measurement techniques which are now made possible by recent advances in photonic technology and will welcome discussion on how these can be optimised to meet the unique challenges faced by both public and private sector operators of nuclear assets.

Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics

Keynote

Rumina Velshi, President Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

Keynote

Susan le Jeune d’Allegeerscheque, British High Commissioner to Canada

Panel: Lessons Learned from Other Industries

Other industries are pursuing innovation and implementing disruptive technologies at a rapid pace – senior leaders share stories of success and lessons learned, and paint a picture of how they are embracing change in the future.  Learn from Agri-foods, Military, Aerospace and Healthcare about their journey, and lessons along the way, of introducing disruptive technologies into their respective industries. There are lessons for our journey.

Moderated by: Moira Harvey, Executive Director, Ontario Aerospace Council

Hear from Experts:

Matthew Killi, Chief Commercial Officer, Dessa

Patrick Laganiere, Program Manager, Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS)

Timothy Reedman, Director, Industrial Systems, Robotics and Automation, MDA A Maxar Company

Alexander Tsoulis, Director - Business Development & Advanced Technologies, MHI Corp

Around the Exhibits in 80 minutes

Keynote

Future Crunch is a group of scientists, artists, researchers and entrepreneurs that believes science and technology are creating a world that is more peaceful, connected and abundant. Join them as they share that story. They create dynamic, entertaining presentations, designed to make audiences think differently. Their mission is to foster intelligent, optimistic thinking about the future, and to empower people to contribute to a 21st century that works for everyone

Dr Angus Hervey, Co-Founder Future Crunch

Hackathon Presentations and announcement of winners

Networking Reception & Exhibitor Show