Date on Master's Thesis/Doctoral Dissertation

12-2013

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph. D.

Department

Industrial Engineering

Committee Chair

Biles, William E.

Author's Keywords

AIMMS; Cost Analysis; Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Plants; Dismantling and Decommissioning process; Lean Management; Math Model; MATLAB; OMEGA Code; MS Project; Multiple Objective Optimization Problem (MOOP); Project Management; Simultaneous Engineering; SPSS; R the programming language; Reactor Internals; Risk management

Subject

Project management; Nuclear power plants--Decommissioning; Nuclear facilities--Decommissioning

Abstract

The complexity, relevance and critical nature of the decommissioning of nuclear power plants (NPP) are of great significance in today's society. Following the catastrophe in Fukushima a shift in the general public's perception of NPP took place throughout the world and in Europe in particular. In this dissertation interdisciplinary methods will be discussed to identify solutions which take into account the technological complexity and organizational issues involved in the dismantling and decommissioning process of NPP. Operations research, lean management, simultaneous engineering, cost analysis, multiple-objective optimization, project management, software tools are powerful concepts and methodologies when undertaking the dismantling and decommissioning process of NPP. Besides the presentation of a wide range of terminological and methodological definitions and technical terms based on the Literature Review, in the dissertation a framework for model development of a Multiple objective optimization problem (MOOP) will discussed focusing on empirical data from a virtual NPP. The theoretical foundation of the framework is at the intersection of two successful approaches used to describe and accomplish similar complex challenges, and the integration of state-of-the-art process approaches such as lean management. The procedural conception of the model is mainly leant on the OMEGA model (International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) (2008)). Mathematically the model is derived from Jones et. al. (1998). Finally the application of the model using different software tools (AIMMS, MATLAB, R and SPSS) will be presented. In conclusion the work will be put into a position to venture a critical outlook and discussion for the future of the decommissioning and dismantling processes of NPP. The main goal of this dissertation is to define the requirements for the optimization of three objectives: Minimizing the total project cost, reducing the safety hazard (risk) and managing project duration. Also a description of how the programming language R and the AIMMS program interfaces with the OMEGA application and how R will be used to solve the MOOP will be given. The software Microsoft Project will be leveraged in order to model this objective.

Share

COinS