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Glad you're going on Monday. I'm not driving up until Thursday morning. If I get lost... I'll just call you!

Next to Criminal Justice, and just over from the Kinsey Institute, two other fields of interest that may be fields of interest.

Hup

Speaking of Bloomington, does anyone know if most of the action will take place at the convention center, or will it take place on the IU campus? I've heard mixed answers.

bloke wrote:Danny,

If you manage to find the place, you can hang around my boof all day.

Thanks. I'll bring the beer!

Don't miss the Kinsey Institute while you're there, if you can get in.

MaryAnn wrote:Don't miss the Kinsey Institute while you're there, if you can get in.

There is the makings of a pretty good joke here, but in defference to our more sensitive board members (there I go again), I'll let it pass.

Chuck"insert Beavis and Butthead laugh here"Jackson

As a side-note.... do you realize that the liberal minded IU actually has an oil well operating on the university property? No... it's not part of the research at the school of geology. Apparently it's about MONEY!

That's nothing: the Missouri University of Science and Technology (formerly known as University of Missouri - Rolla and originally known as Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy) has a commercial nuclear reactor to manufacture isotopes for commercial and medical applications, as well as the centerpiece of their nuclear engineering program.

http://reactor.mst.edu/" target="_blank" target="_blank

Hopefully it wasn't built by Babcock & Wilcox.......

Heavy_Metal wrote:Hopefully it wasn't built by Babcock & Wilcox.......

Although B & W took a lot of the heat for the TMI fiasco... the bulk of what they build is pressure vessels. It's true that one of their valves failed but it was still the human element that caused the majority of the problems.

bloke wrote:Were it in Texas, it would be nucular.

Hey, Jimmuh Cottah got a degree in nuclear physics and he somehow still managed to say "nukeah"

TubaTinker wrote:

Heavy_Metal wrote:Hopefully it wasn't built by Babcock & Wilcox.......

Although B & W took a lot of the heat for the TMI fiasco... the bulk of what they build is pressure vessels. It's true that one of their valves failed but it was still the human element that caused the majority of the problems.

Wasn't just that power-relief valve, according to two separate accounts I've read- there were some other design flaws that caused false coolant level readings, the alarm printer ran about 30 minutes behind, every time the reactor core exceeded 700°F the printer would print question marks (and it got two or three times that hot), etc etc etc. And of course the operators didn't believe their instruments. Plenty of blame to go around, but B&W's rather poor design contributed to the accident.

One of my customers was a nuclear engineer (now retired) and he wonders how that reactor ever got approved.

Heavy_Metal wrote:... One of my customers was a nuclear engineer (now retired) and he wonders how that reactor ever got approved.

Nuclear engineers designed TMI. I guess they can't all be great.

I spent quite a bit of time in the B & W plant in Mount Vernon, Indiana.... just a few miles west of here. I wasn't involved in the engineering but the magnitude of the equipment was (is) amazing.

The concept of laying down several layers of rope welds of Inconel the size of one's thumb on the inside of those vessels prior to being machined smooth is amazing. Imagine a vertical lathe where the operator rides in a cab mounted on the tool bit!

Even after the TMI thing The Government kept that place alive because it's one of the few companies capable of building reactors for The Navy and rocket boosters for NASA.

Yup... despite massive amounts of security and quality control... things can still go wrong.