Developing architecture for upgrading I&C systems of an operating nuclear power plant using a quality attribute-driven design method

This paper presents the architecture for upgrading the instrumentation and control (I&C) systems of a Korean standard nuclear power plant (KSNP) as an operating nuclear power plant. This paper uses the analysis results of KSNP's I&C systems performed in a previous study. This paper proposes a Preparation–Decision–Design–Assessment (PDDA) process that focuses on quality oriented development, as a cyclical process to develop the architecture. The PDDA was motivated from the practice of architecture-based development used in software engineering fields. In the preparation step of the PDDA, the architecture of digital-based I&C systems was setup for an architectural goal. Single failure criterion and determinism were setup for architectural drivers. In the decision step, defense-in-depth, diversity, redundancy, and independence were determined as architectural tactics to satisfy the single failure criterion, and sequential execution was determined as a tactic to satisfy the determinism. After determining the tactics, the primitive digital-based I&C architecture was determined. In the design step, 17 systems were selected from the KSNP's I&C systems for the upgrade and functionally grouped based on the primitive architecture. The overall architecture was developed to show the deployment of the systems. The detailed architecture of the safety systems was developed by applying a 2-out-of-3 voting logic, and the detailed architecture of the non-safety systems was developed by hot-standby redundancy. While developing the detailed architecture, three ways of signal transmission were determined with proper rationales: hardwire, datalink, and network. In the assessment step, the required network performance, considering the worst-case of data transmission was calculated: the datalink was required by 120 kbps, the safety network by 5 Mbps, and the non-safety network by 60 Mbps. The architecture covered 17 systems out of 22 KSNP's I&C systems. The architecture is implementable with the equipment developed in South Korea. The architecture can be used as a model to upgrade the existing I&C systems in a planned, large-scale, and one-shot manner. A more detailed architecture down to software level will be developed in the future.     

A model for estimation of reactor spurious shutdown rate considering maintenance human errors in reactor protection system of nuclear power plants

Modeling of spurious activations in safety instrumented systems has been studied for over a decade. The spurious activation of a plant protection system in nuclear power plants (NPPs) leads to increased electricity generation cost. An in-depth view on spurious activation of digital plant protection systems of NPPs for human errors in maintenance tasks is presented in this paper. A new model which considers human errors in maintenance and periodic tests to predict component failure rates is presented. The model has been applied to OPR-1000 reactor protection system for quantification of spurious trip frequency by fault-tree analysis. The major causes of spurious activation in a nuclear reactor protection system are identified. A set of case studies has been performed with the variation of magnitudes of human errors probability and maintenance strategies, in which, the human errors in maintenance are found to significantly influence reactor spurious trip frequency. This study is expected to provide a useful mean to designers as well as maintainers of the digital reactor protection system to improve plant availability and safety.     

Thermal-hydraulic calculations using MARS code applied to low power and shutdown probabilistic safety assessment in a PWR

The methods developed for full-power probabilistic safety assessment, including thermal-hydraulic methods, have been widely applied to low power and shutdown conditions. Experience from current low power and shutdown probabilistic safety assessments, however, indicates that the thermal-hydraulic methods developed for full-power probabilistic safety assessments are not always reliable when applied to low power and shutdown conditions and consequently may yield misleading and inaccurate risk insights. To increase the usefulness of the low power and shutdown risk insights, the current methods and tools used for thermal-hydraulic calculations should be examined to ascertain whether they function effectively for low power and shutdown conditions. In this study, a platform for relatively detailed thermal-hydraulic calculations applied to low power and shutdown conditions in a pressurized water reactor was developed based on the best estimate thermal-hydraulic analysis code, MARS2.1. To confirm the applicability of the MARS platform to low power and shutdown conditions, many thermal-hydraulic analyses were performed for the selected topic, i.e. the loss of shutdown cooling events for various plant operating states at the Korean standard nuclear power plant. The platform developed in this study can deal effectively with low power and shutdown conditions, as well as assist the accident sequence analysis in low power and shutdown probabilistic safety assessments by providing fundamental data. Consequently, the resulting analyses may yield more realistic and accurate low power and shutdown risk insights.     

Axial offset control of PWR nuclear reactor core using intelligent techniques

Improved load following capability is one of the main technical performances of advanced PWR (APWR). Controlling the nuclear reactor core during load following operation encounters some difficulties. These difficulties mainly arise from nuclear reactor core limitations in local power peaking, while the core is subject to large and sharp variation of local power density during transients. Axial offset (AO) is the parameter usually used to represent of core power peaking, in form of a practical parameter. This paper, proposes a new intelligent approach to AO control of PWR nuclear reactors core during load following operation. This method uses a neural network model of the core to predict the dynamic behavior of the core and a fuzzy critic based on the operator knowledge and experience for the purpose of decision-making during load following operations. Simulation results show that this method can use optimum control rod groups maneuver with variable overlapping and may improve the reactor load following capability.     

Development and characterization of the control assembly system for the large 2400 MWth Generation IV gas-cooled fast reactor

The present paper is related to the design and neutronic characterization of the principal control assembly system for the reference large (2400 MWth) Generation IV gas-cooled fast reactor (GFR), which makes use of ceramic–ceramic (CERCER) plate-type fuel-elements with (U–Pu) carbide fuel contained within a SiC inert matrix. For the neutronic calculations, the deterministic code system ERANOS-2.0 has been used, in association with a full core model including a European fast reactor (EFR)-type pattern for the control assemblies as a starting point. More specifically, the core contains a total of 33 control (control system device: CSD) and safety (diverse safety device: DSD) assemblies implemented in three banks. In the design of the new control assembly system, particular attention was given to the heat generation within the assemblies, so that both neutronic and thermal–hydraulic constraints could be appropriately accounted for. The thermal–hydraulic calculations have been performed with the code COPERNIC, significant coolant mass flow rates being found necessary to maintain acceptable cladding temperatures of the absorber pins.     

Development and diversity and defense-in-depth application of ABWR feedwater pump and controller model

This work developed an advanced boiling water reactor (ABWR) feedwater pump and controller model, which was incorporated into Personal Computer Transient Analyzer (PCTran)-ABWR, a nuclear power plant simulation code. The feedwater pump model includes three turbine-driven feedwater pumps and one motor-driven feedwater pump. The feedwater controller includes a one-element/three-element water level controller and a specific feedwater speed controller for each feedwater pump. The performance tests, including step change of dome pressure, feedwater pumps transfer, inadvertent closure of all turbine control valves, and one feedwater pump trip at 100% power, demonstrate the feasibility of dynamic response of stand-alone model and incorporated model. Furthermore, a diversity and defense-in-depth analysis is performed to demonstrate the feasibility for motor-driven feedwater pump as an emergency core cooling system (ECCS) automatic diverse back-up. In Lungmen nuclear power plant (NPP), a diverse manual initiation means for the high pressure core flooder (HPCF) loop C is designed as the back-up of digitalized engineered safety features actuation system (ESFAS). If the motor-driven feedwater pump (MDFWP) can be an automatic digital diverse back-up for ESFAS, Lungmen NPP would be more robust to defend against software common-cause failure (CCF).