With a Team Like This, It’s Hard to be Modest!
Annually, AECL recognizes an outstanding group of employees with AECL Awards of Excellence. These employees, nominated by their peers, have made significant contributions of excellence in a variety of disciplines and endeavours. The Awards of Excellence recipients, chosen by a judging panel made up of Executive Management Committee members, embody our values of performance, innovation, accountability, excellence and safety.
This year’s Awards of Excellence recipients:
G.L. Brooks Award for exceptional practical engineering:
Ian Love, for his extraordinary contribution to AECL’s business and the nuclear industry throughout his 30-year career. In particular, his role in the area of advanced power reactor design, engineering leadership and strong customer relationships have helped bring AECL to its present position in the industry, poised for significant new reactor project business. In addition, Ian has been a technical leader of AECL’s work with CANDU® manufacturers to ensure the Advanced CANDU Reactor® (ACR-1000®) design is achievable, and practical in practice. Ian has been central to the successful definition of the ACR, and to many of its fundamental technology innovations.
Discovery Award for outstanding achievement in research:
MMIRSIM team of Majid Borairi, John de Grosbois, Joe Tseng, Vinicius Anghel, Ying Zhao and Randy Trueman, for their significant technical innovation and exceptional teamwork in the development of a computer program to simulate the dynamics of the MAPLE reactor under a variety of conditions. The MMIRSIM program offers a systematic approach to control system design, and eliminates a time consuming, expensive and ineffective conventional approach. The MMIRSIM’s summarized and reusable modules can be used for rapid development and modeling of other complex systems, and are expected to become the basis for development of similar design/verification tools for control system design and analysis for ACR and other projects. In addition, MMIRSIM will enhance AECL’s research and development reputation through publication and paper presentations.
The team of Nancy Elliot, Stan Linauskas, Linda Paterson, Susan Gardner and Laurie Burchart, for their outstanding multi-disciplinary approach to the development and application of a highly accurate and sensitive thermal ionization mass spectrometry (TIMS) method for the routine determination of ultra-trace amounts of plutonium in urine samples. This enables AECL to accurately and precisely detect employee plutonium intakes at a level well below the sensitivity requirement for baseline and routine monitoring in the nuclear industry. This ultra-sensitive TIMS method is essential for the safe and continued operation of the Recycle Fuel Fabrication Laboratory (RFFL) within regulatory standards, as an AECL licence facility. It also enables the RFFL to meet AECL’s business needs in advanced fuel development and fabrication.
Bhaskar Sur and Shuwei Yue, for displaying initiative and innovation in working together to develop Novel Instrumentation and Techniques, a detector used for measuring very high radiation levels, including a systematic study to identify the effects of temperature and radiation degradation. The development of this minimal-cost, compact-designed detector is significant, as it helped determine the extent of corrosion in a high-level radioactive storage tank in the Molybdenum-99 facility by providing essential information for continued safe operation. The detector meets the need for an instrument not commercially available, and also generated cost savings for AECL.
Distinguished Merit Award for exceptional contributions in any discipline
Anne Giardini, for her outstanding role in promoting women in non-traditional roles at AECL. As a mentor and keynote speaker, Anne has encouraged and fostered young women to view the trades profession, and AECL, as a career of choice. With this visionary approach to the future, Anne has helped ensure AECL’s success in recruiting the highly skilled workforce necessary to achieve our goals and objectives.
The Mechanical Equipment and Seal Development (MESD) team of William Diamond, Leo Recoskie and Kerry Weisenberg, for working collaboratively to develop the tooling and procedures to diagnose the degree of degradation of the leading thermowells in the Fissile Solution Storage Tank (FISST). Armed with innovative solutions, the team responded rapidly to the serious safety concerns and potential site licence issue, to temporarily restore the pressure boundary, and help assess the tanks’ overall fitness-for-service. This exceptional teamwork helped AECL assure the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), the public, and AECL employees that the tank could be restored for the safe storage of radioactive solution. In addition, the team’s inventive solution to the leak in the storage tank was delivered at a much lower cost, and positive schedule than initially considered. This demonstrated to the CNSC that AECL had a strong and successful action plan to a significant safety issue.
The Boiling-Length Average (BLA) team of Laurence Leung, De Groeneveld, Bruce Hanna and Yu-Jun Guo, for their exceptional contribution in developing a methodology for calculating critical heat flux that shows significant gains in critical channel power and four to six per cent increases in Neutron Overpower Protection set points. This new methodology resulted in increased reactor power output, a simplified licensing approach related to safety margins across CANDU plants, and increased revenue for CANDU utilities and AECL. Based on the teams’ technical contribution, assessed by Bruce Power, Ontario Power Generation and Bruce Power have adopted the BLA method as their future approach to licensing. In addition, it has been accepted by the Canadian CANDU industry, through many presentations and concentrated customer communication, in providing a unified methodology for all future licence applications.
The Pressure-Tube-to-Calandria-Tube Gap Analysis (PT/CT) team of Stuart Craig, Jeff Olfert and Dave Dunford, for their collaborative teamwork bringing gap measurement and analysis of PT/CT into prominence. The team refined to a superior level of accuracy, the technique relied on by CANDU stations worldwide to demonstrate their continued fitness for service. The evolution of gap analysis code from a relatively crude level of assessment, to the current method has reduced inspection results from weeks to three days, resulting in unprecedented speed and reliability. This enables AECL to provide a fuel channel inspection service, not available elsewhere, and also generates revenue. In addition, many of these technologies have been transferred to the CANDU Owners Group with industry-wide acceptance of the application. The gap analysis also enhances the value of CANDU design by identifying actions required for extending the safe operation of reactors near the end of their lifespan. It also supports future retube requirements to demonstrate gap measurement capability before first fuelling.
Jerzy Parkitny, for his significant contribution during the completion of the Cernavoda 2 project. He ensured the work was accomplished on time and under budget. As an engineering leader, Jerzy coordinated the successful resolution of two identified deficiencies that would have had a major impact on the schedule and budget of the Cernavoda project. The resolution ensured AECL and partner Babcock and Wilcox’s (BWC) contract had a clear scope, with proper terms, and pending issues were resolved to expedite contract signing. In addition, Jerzy led the coordination on both deficiencies projects between AECL and BWC with full cooperation, before and during site implementation.
Raj Jaitly, for his innovative, complex risk-based approach to the closure of CNSC generic action item 95-G-02, resolving the need to add a moderator or heat transport system make up system, to compensate for potential pressure tube/calandria tube rupture at the Point Lepreau Generating Station (PLGS). Raj developed an argument assessing the risk factors contributing to a possible tube failure. This generic conditional assessment, submitted by PLGS, was accepted by the CNSC. Raj’s accomplishment resulted in significant savings for AECL customer New Brunswick Power, and removed the need to design, build and install an additional cooling system to address this accident condition. In addition, all CANDU utilities will benefit from this innovation and significant savings will be made as a result of no required design changes.
Shami Dua, Mike Austreng and Mohinder Grover, for their leadership role in guiding a strategy to integrate the Pressure Boundary and Engineering Services Quality Assurance (QA) manuals under a single Commercial Operations Products and Field Services (COPFS) QA Manual, and obtain regulatory certification, on target and with no findings. This prerequisite certification enabled AECL to proceed on schedule with its contractual obligations, and refurbishment activities for Bruce A and Point Lepreau. In addition, the use of a single manual will also improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the overall quality of the refurbishment work.
Jim Crochetiere, for his development and implementation of a Central Resource Management System within Commercial Operations to ensure AECL not only meets, but exceeds its technical resourcing needs. This unified approach to resourcing has ensured consistency in recruiting, performance management, deployments and compliance with collective agreements. The recruitment of qualified and competent resources has played a key role in increased revenue for AECL, productivity improvements, and decreased operating costs. Under Jim’s direction, several of his new initiatives have also advanced organizational learning and knowledge retention.