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!
