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| This picture is modified from KKL's pamphlet. |
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| About IAESTE |
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| The International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience, or much well-known as IAESTE is running international exchanges program for students to gain practical training relevant to their studies. The association has branches in more than 80 countries worldwide and is supported by hundreds of universities or colleges and many major companies.
The exchanges program is held one to one between any two member countries. This means the sending country will offer the same number of training opportunity to its counterpart. The connection can be run among member countries freely.
This program is still new in Asia and North America, but it has long history in Europe for more than 50 years. In 2001, Germany has accepted more than 1000 students from the world. Japan has around 150 students. I joined this program in Japan, and I found that Malaysia is not a member country yet. I hope this program will be introduced to Malaysian students in near future.
To read more about IAESTE, visit the following website.
IAESTE Official Website
IAESTE Japan
IAESTE Switzerland
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| My Internship Life |
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|  I applied for the 2001 IAESTE Program and was accepted by Kernkraftwerk Leibstadt (Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant) in Switzerland. I went to Switzerland at the beginning of June and carried out my practical training for 12 weeks.
 I worked in the Engineering Analysis Department. My main task was analysing a huge set of power plant's operation data that has been collected for the past 7 years. My work was focusing on the large surface condenser which is one of the most important components in a power plant. The condenser performance will affect and determine the efficiency of a power plant.
Condenser pressure is always used as a parameter in considering condenser performance. It is known that the condenser pressure varies with the cooling water inlet temperature and thermal load. However, the behaviour of those effects was unclear. The result of my work found that the cooling water inlet temperature has immediate effect but the thermal load's effect only can be seen in overall cycle year. Besides, the result also shows that the condenser performance is decreasing with a higher condenser pressure. These results were concluded in a report at the end of the program.
Here, I would like to thank Mr. Peter Baumann, Mr. Reinhard Fuchs and Mr. Olivier Nusbaumer in appreciation of their helps and useful guides during the time I was in KKL. I learnt a lot about the operation system of nuclear power plant and the most unforgettable experience is the visit inside the cooling water tower and condenser during the outage.
I have prepared a trainee's report to IAESTE Japan, but it is only available in Japanese. If you are interested, please visit to Trainee's Report 2001.
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| Kernkratwerk Leibstadt |
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|  Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant is located in a small and peace town, Northern Switzerland. The power plant started its commercial operation in 1985 and marked as the latest and largest nuclear power plant in the country. The electric output was designed at 1200MW, and it has plan to upgrade the output to 1500MW by several steps in near future. The power plant supplies its electric output to nationwide consumers through a grid system.
Presently, KKL has 400 regular employees and during outage some more 500 workers will gather at the plant to carry out fuel exchange and many maintenance works.
Access the KKL Official Website to get more details.
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| Solothurn |
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In the three months stay in Switzerland, I spent most of my weekend travelling to its nearby countries. Therefore, I missed many chances to join outing programs organised by IAESTE Switzerland. Luckily, I managed to join the Farming Weekend, took place in Solothurn which well known as city of magic number 11 !!
 The program was co-organised by IAESTE (Zurich Local Committee) and IAAS. About 40 students coming as far as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Belarus and so on, gathered at the peaceful town on the night of July 20th. The next morning, we had a city-tour and know that Solothurn has 11 churches, 11 museums, 11 fountains and many other thing related to the magic number. At noon, we were led to visit a farm. Although, we didn't have chance to milk the cows for everyone, we did enjoy the visit.
 On Sunday, the weather was great with blue sky and neat temperature. It is perfect for hiking. We spent hours to hike up a hill and could viewed The Alps although it is quite far away. The scenery is great but we only managed to take some shots in our cameras including the one on the above, which was taken by a passerby. He had an assistant to carry our cameras and spent almost 5 minutes finishing one by one. Thank you very much!!
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| The ALPS -- this picture is combined by 4 photos. |
