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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Automatic reactor protection system tester

Conference · · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (USA)
OSTI ID:5656294

In a pressurized water reactor (PWR) plant, the role of protection systems is to continuously monitor reactor physical parameters. If abnormal operating conditions are detected, these systems trigger protective and safeguard actions. On typical 900-MW(electric) PWR units, the reactor protection system consists of more than 30 electrical cabinets per train, i.e., per subsystem part of the safety injection system, each cabinet containing several hundreds of relays. In normal operation, protection systems are on standby. Should one or more of their components fail, this failure could remain undetected. This is why safety authorities require periodic testing of these systems. To eliminate the risk of reactor trip during reactor protection system testing, Framatome has developed a completely automatic tester. Only one technician in the control room is necessary to use this tester, which automatically carries out all the operations previously done manually. For one train, the test lasts only 40 min instead of 10 h. Test sequences are programmed in solid-state memories. The existing relay circuitry of each unit is analyzed beforehand to make any adaptions required by the use of the automatic tester.

OSTI ID:
5656294
Report Number(s):
CONF-881011--
Journal Information:
Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (USA), Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (USA) Vol. 57; ISSN TANSA; ISSN 0003-018X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English