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Vol.2 , No. 3, Publication Date: Apr. 28, 2015, Page: 98-105
 have been replaced with digital systems. Recently, new NPPs have adapted various kinds of digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The digitalized Instrumentation and Control system can provide more powerful overall operation capability, and user friendly man machine interface. The operator can obtain more information through digital I&C system. However, while I&C system is the heart of the nuclear power plant, three issues are encountered: (1) software common cause failure, (2) the interaction failures between operator and digital instrumentation and control system interface, (3) the non detectability of software failure. These failures might defeat defense echelons, and make the Diversity and Defense in Depth (D3) analysis be more difficult. These three weak point are more related to I&C system signals reliability. The I&C system consists of 30 sub-systems lies in 183 I&C cabinets, which are analyzed and mapped to the sub-systems. As reliability of systems and signals is considered one of the most important safety design requirements, this paper is a deep and comprehensive analysis to I&C sub-systems signals reliability. That paper presents an assessment to the reliability of Instrumentation and Control system “I&C” signals of a nuclear power plant. This reliability assessment is based on analyzing the Instrumentation and Control system using top down approach.&picture=http://www.aascit.org/aascit/decorators/img/journal/902.jpg)
| [1] | Wesam Z. Ibrahim, Operation Safety and Human Factors Department, Nuclear & Radiological Regulatory Authority, Cairo, Egypt. |
Since digital technologies have been improved, the analog systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs) have been replaced with digital systems. Recently, new NPPs have adapted various kinds of digital instrumentation and control (I&C) systems. The digitalized Instrumentation and Control system can provide more powerful overall operation capability, and user friendly man machine interface. The operator can obtain more information through digital I&C system. However, while I&C system is the heart of the nuclear power plant, three issues are encountered: (1) software common cause failure, (2) the interaction failures between operator and digital instrumentation and control system interface, (3) the non detectability of software failure. These failures might defeat defense echelons, and make the Diversity and Defense in Depth (D3) analysis be more difficult. These three weak point are more related to I&C system signals reliability. The I&C system consists of 30 sub-systems lies in 183 I&C cabinets, which are analyzed and mapped to the sub-systems. As reliability of systems and signals is considered one of the most important safety design requirements, this paper is a deep and comprehensive analysis to I&C sub-systems signals reliability. That paper presents an assessment to the reliability of Instrumentation and Control system “I&C” signals of a nuclear power plant. This reliability assessment is based on analyzing the Instrumentation and Control system using top down approach.
Keywords
Instrumentation and Control, Signal Reliability, Nuclear Power Plants
Reference
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