"Free Dave" Day 3: Dave Saves Money on the EPU

💸 Before you spend $500K on a reanalysis, make sure you actually have to. While you’re at it, #freedave.

The plant is pursuing an extended power uprate. Leadership needs to know if the existing containment analysis holds at EPU conditions before committing to a full reanalysis.

Dave's old way: Half a day finding the calculation, then a slog through manual parameter comparison. He has to write memo under time pressure before the Thursday 2pm meeting.

With Gordian: Containment parameters cross-referenced against EPU conditions. Comparison table — containment design pressure, LOCA mass and energy release, peak temperature, post-LOCA hydrogen, ECCS back-pressure. Quick recalculations using design basis info and Python libraries. Flags for further analysis where needed.

Dave reviews the table, calls the containment engineer, and walks into the meeting with a recommendation: "Do QA runs for M&E release and hydrogen. Pressure margin is tight but holds. Here's the scope." That's a $200K decision made on data, not gut feel.

Someone has to find the margin before the plant commits. That someone is always Dave.

When Dave retires, his comparison table and scoping rationale are on record. The next engineer starts from Dave's analysis, not from scratch.

We’re up to 27 hours freed. That's more PTO than Dave took all of 2025.

Dave left at 2pm. That was early enough to get out on the lake.