Development of a false alarm free, Advanced Loose Parts Monitoring System (ALPS)

An Advanced Loose Parts Monitoring System (its acronym is ALPS) has been developed and installed on each unit of the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, Hungary. ALPS uses sophisticated methods to identify the events hidden in the quite extensive background noise of nuclear power plants. A classification algorithm based on an expert system, which is trained during the start-up period of each fuel cycle, helps to improve the false alarm rate. Thus the false alarm rate was reduced to a minimum, statistically below 1%. In practice, even the remaining “false alarms” were identified to be originating from other noise sources using ALPS. The main principles of ALPS are presented. It is demonstrated, that even weak signals, comparable with the resolution of the analog-digital board, i.e. comparable with detection noises, can be identified at high certainty. Other events like vibration of the shaft of motor operated isolating valves have been identified by ALPS. Furthermore, experiences gained during the installation period are also discussed.