AES PNW Section | ASA Northwest Chapter
August Field Trip
NWAA Labs – Acoustical Measuring Facility
Satsop Washington
August 13 or August 20, 2011 (TBA)
Your section officers are organizing a field trip, in conjunction with the ASA (Northwest Chapter of the Acoustical Society of America) on Saturday, August 13 or August 20 to the home of NWAA Labs in Satsop, WA. If the name of the town sounds familiar, it should, as it is home to the unfinished Satsop Nuclear Power Plant, aka the abandoned/unfinished WPPSS project. What can you do with a nuclear power plant that was never completed? Turn the massive concrete structures into a world-class acoustical test facility.
It’s about 100 miles to Satsop from Seattle, and we may charter a bus to get us to/from the facility. With $4 gas, the bus isn’t such a bad idea. The bus charter makes sense if 29 people are willing to get there via bus. We’ll spend the whole day there. Ron Sauro, owner and chief scientist of the facility, assures us that he can keep us interested thru the entire afternoon. The best dates look like August 13 or August 20.
The buildings redefine the word massive. The main reactor building (300ftx300ft) was designed to withstand a direct nuclear strike, or a magnitude 10 earthquake. The reinforced concrete walls are 5 (five!) feet thick. The containment vessel will hold the Space Needle, with room to spare.
n.b. The main building is 4 stories tall, with high ceiling clearances. The tour will entail more than a bit of stairway climbing, with a fair amount of physical effort required. There are no elevators and no wheelchair accommodations.
Want to Attend?
Send email to gregmauser at hotmail dot com
Please indicate if you’ll ride our bus AND your preferred date(s). We’ll get back to you with payment information. The bus needs to be about 80% full (29). At that level, the price is $25/person. It’s not worth chartering the bus if we’re not at the 75-80% level.
More Info?
See the PNW AES Section’s homepage: http://www.aes.org/sections/pnw/ There’s additional pictures and links there.
Andrew Boone, ASA Northwest Chapter
Dan Mortensen, AES PNW 2011-2012 Section Chair