STLLC CORNER
Breaking New Ground in Standards
Standards support safer and more efficient engineering practices, and while revisions on existing standards continue, new standards are always on the horizon.
Written by Michael McKenna
ASME HAS MORE THAN 570 active standards and is always developing new ones to meet the evolving needs of society. One of Standards Technology, LLC’s (STLLC) most important roles is to help facilitate the development of these new standards.
Below are two STLLC projects that are laying the groundwork for ASME’s growth into new areas.
Project 200: Target Availability for Mechanical Fluid Systems
One standard currently in development is on Plant Systems Design, PSD-1. The focus of this standard is to provide requirements and guidance for design processes, practices, and tools that will provide a means for organizations to develop safer and more efficient systems, structures, and product designs with quantified safety levels. PSD-1 will integrate systems engineering, risk evaluation, and probabilistic design practices into traditional plant engineering processes.
STLLC research project 200 is being run to help support the development of PSD-1. Pamela Nelson, a professor at the National University of Mexico, developed and is leading the project. It will produce a pilot methodology to establish availability and support reliability targets for a technology neutral hypothetical mechanical fluid system. This methodology will be accompanied by a software program that performs the analytical method. The established methodology will be capable of providing important base analytical methods that will be used for further advancement. It uses risk analysis methods to determine the impact of facility equipment or structure unreliability and unavailability relative to the capability of the facility to meet specific facility level risk metric investment goals. Trade-offs associated with unavailability sources can be used to optimize facility designs relative to cost, safety, and performance needs.
Source: Getty
As an example, if fully developed while planning out a facility design, it will allow a designer to try swapping out one type of pump with a known cost and reliability for another type of pump with a higher cost and a higher reliability. Then the effect of this increased reliability will be integrated with the reliability of the entire facility to see if it makes enough of a difference to justify the increased cost. This level of detail will allow designers to focus resources on the areas that have the biggest overall effects on plant safety, reliability, and availability.
The methodology will be technology neutral and can be used for any engineered facility. It will help engineers design and build safer, more reliable, less expensive facilities that optimize the balance between safety and production across any industry. It will also allow these optimized designs to be built faster, helping keep up with the growing needs of society. This project, and the development of PSD-1 that it supports, will bring substantial, long-lasting benefits.
The project is in its final stages. Its final report and software will be available to the committee by the end of June 2026.
JSME/ASME agreement
ASME recently signed an agreement with the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME) to jointly develop a draft code for the construction of Tokamak fusion power plants, marking a significant step towards global standardization in fusion energy technology. From the ASME side, the effort to come to this agreement was led by Kathryn Hyam, ASME’s director of nuclear clean energy and standardization, and Michael McKenna, project manager of research.
This collaboration between JSME and ASME represents a major milestone in the global effort to advance fusion energy. By working together, JSME and ASME are laying the groundwork for safe, reliable, and standardized construction of tokamak fusion power plants worldwide. This effort will help maximize the positive potential impact fusion can have on society and speed up its deployment on a global scale.
This initiative is supported by the Japanese government’s BRIDGE (Bridging the gap between R&D and the IDeal society and Generating Economic and social value) program, which is dedicated to fusion energy standardization and globalization, with a particular emphasis on the tokamak design as the leading choice for fusion energy today.
Photo: Getty
STLLC is also taking an active role in facilitating the development of the Tokamak code. Working for the Japanese firm QST, National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology, STLLC is helping ANRIC Enterprises advise on the development of the draft Tokamak code by providing project management, accounting, and reporting services.
This serves as a good example of some of the other types of projects STLLC can be used for and helps provide an easier way for ASME to engage with unique opportunities. STLLC is helping remove some of the reporting, accounting, and project management duties from QST and ANRIC Enterprises, which allows the experts from both of those organizations to focus on the much more important technical aspects of the project.
Fusion has the potential to radically change energy production, and therefore society as a whole. It could replace all other forms of energy generation, solve the energy crisis, and make truly clean energy more affordable and widely available. ASME’s mission is advancing engineering for the benefit of humanity, and there is no way better to fulfill that mission than by helping do our part to help make the potential of fusion a reality.
Michael McKenna is project manager, research at ASME.
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