Radiation monitoring instrumentation for nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bharath Kumar, M.

2013-01-01

Measurement of nucleonic signals is required to control and operate the reactor in a safe and reliable manner. To achieve this, parameters like Neutron flux, other radiation fields, contamination levels, source strength, release thru stack etc. are required to be monitored and controlled. The above are required to be monitored throughout the life of the reactor whether it is operational or in shutdown condition. In addition such monitoring is also required during decommissioning phase of the reactor as needed. To measure these parameters a large number of instruments are used in Nuclear Power Plants (NPP) which includes sensors and electronics for detecting alpha, beta, gamma and neutron radiation with qualification to withstand harsh environment

Reactor Emergency Action Level Monitor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Touchton, R.A.

1987-01-01

The Reactor Emergency Action Level Monitor (REALM) Expert System is designed to provide assistance in the identification of a nuclear power plant emergency situation and the determination of its severity. REALM has been developed to operate in a real-time processing environment. REALM embodies a hybrid architecture utilizing both rule-based reasoning and object-oriented programming techniques borrowed from the Artificial Intelligence discipline of Computer Sciences. The rulebase consists of event-based rules and symptom-based rules. The symptom-based rules go beyond the current EAL structure to address the more problematic scenarios and entail a more symbolic representation of the plant information. The results to date have been encouraging that expert system technology can provide improved emergency decision-making capability in nuclear power plants

Voices of nuclear power monitors in fiscal 1982

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1984-01-01

The system of nuclear power monitors was set up to hear candid opinions, etc. from general people on nuclear power development and utilization, and reflect them to nuclear power administration. As the monitors, 416 persons were selected across the country. The results in fiscal 1982 are described. (1) Questionnaire survey: Of the 416, 314 persons answered the questionnaire conducted in March, 1983, on future energy, nuclear power development, nuclear power safety administration, and nuclear power P.R. activities. (2) Occasional voices of monitors: Of the total 74 opinions, etc. from the monitors in fiscal 1982, 31 concerned the nuclear power P.R. activities, followed by 16 on nuclear power development and utilization, and 12 on nuclear power administration. (Mori, K.)

Power consumption monitoring using additional monitoring device

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Truşcă, M. R. C., E-mail: radu.trusca@itim-cj.ro; Albert, Ş., E-mail: radu.trusca@itim-cj.ro; Tudoran, C., E-mail: radu.trusca@itim-cj.ro; Soran, M. L., E-mail: radu.trusca@itim-cj.ro; Fărcaş, F., E-mail: radu.trusca@itim-cj.ro [National Institute for Research and Development of Isotopic and Molecular Technologies, 65-103 Donath, 400293 Cluj-Napoca (Romania); Abrudean, M. [Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj-Napoca (Romania)

2013-11-13

Today, emphasis is placed on reducing power consumption. Computers are large consumers; therefore it is important to know the total consumption of computing systems. Since their optimal functioning requires quite strict environmental conditions, without much variation in temperature and humidity, reducing energy consumption cannot be made without monitoring environmental parameters. Thus, the present work uses a multifunctional electric meter UPT 210 for power consumption monitoring. Two applications were developed: software which carries meter readings provided by electronic and programming facilitates remote device and a device for temperature monitoring and control. Following temperature variations that occur both in the cooling system, as well as the ambient, can reduce energy consumption. For this purpose, some air conditioning units or some computers are stopped in different time slots. These intervals were set so that the economy is high, but the work's Datacenter is not disturbed.

radio frequency based radio frequency based water level monitor

African Journals Online (AJOL)

eobe

ABSTRACT. This paper elucidates a radio frequency (RF) based transmission and reception system used to remotely monitor and .... range the wireless can cover but in this prototype, it ... power supply to the system, the sensed water level is.

Type GQS-1 high pressure steam manifold water level monitoring system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Nianzu; Li Beicheng; Jia Shengming

1993-10-01

The GQS-1 high pressure steam manifold water level monitoring system is an advanced nuclear gauge that is suitable for on-line detecting and monitor in high pressure steam manifold water level. The physical variable of water level is transformed into electrical pulses by the nuclear sensor. A computer is equipped for data acquisition, analysis and processing and the results are displayed on a 14 inch color monitor. In addition, a 4 ∼ 20 mA output current is used for the recording and regulation of water level. The main application of this gauge is for on-line measurement of high pressure steam manifold water level in fossil-fired power plant and other industries

Comparison of power curve monitoring methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cambron Philippe

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Performance monitoring is an important aspect of operating wind farms. This can be done through the power curve monitoring (PCM of wind turbines (WT. In the past years, important work has been conducted on PCM. Various methodologies have been proposed, each one with interesting results. However, it is difficult to compare these methods because they have been developed using their respective data sets. The objective of this actual work is to compare some of the proposed PCM methods using common data sets. The metric used to compare the PCM methods is the time needed to detect a change in the power curve. Two power curve models will be covered to establish the effect the model type has on the monitoring outcomes. Each model was tested with two control charts. Other methodologies and metrics proposed in the literature for power curve monitoring such as areas under the power curve and the use of statistical copulas have also been covered. Results demonstrate that model-based PCM methods are more reliable at the detecting a performance change than other methodologies and that the effectiveness of the control chart depends on the types of shift observed.

Ultra low power signal oriented approach for wireless health monitoring.

Science.gov (United States)

Marinkovic, Stevan; Popovici, Emanuel

2012-01-01

In recent years there is growing pressure on the medical sector to reduce costs while maintaining or even improving the quality of care. A potential solution to this problem is real time and/or remote patient monitoring by using mobile devices. To achieve this, medical sensors with wireless communication, computational and energy harvesting capabilities are networked on, or in, the human body forming what is commonly called a Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). We present the implementation of a novel Wake Up Receiver (WUR) in the context of standardised wireless protocols, in a signal-oriented WBAN environment and present a novel protocol intended for wireless health monitoring (WhMAC). WhMAC is a TDMA-based protocol with very low power consumption. It utilises WBAN-specific features and a novel ultra low power wake up receiver technology, to achieve flexible and at the same time very low power wireless data transfer of physiological signals. As the main application is in the medical domain, or personal health monitoring, the protocol caters for different types of medical sensors. We define four sensor modes, in which the sensors can transmit data, depending on the sensor type and emergency level. A full power dissipation model is provided for the protocol, with individual hardware and application parameters. Finally, an example application shows the reduction in the power consumption for different data monitoring scenarios.

Development of nuclear power plant Risk Monitor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yang Xiaoming; Sun Jinlong; Ma Chao; Wang Lin; Gu Xiaohui; Bao Zhenli; Qu Yong; Zheng Hao

2014-01-01

Risk Monitor is a tool to monitor the real-time risk of a nuclear power plant for risk management and comprehensive decision-making, which has been widely used all over the world. The nuclear power plant Risk Monitor applies the real-time risk model with low-complicacy that could reflect the plant's actual configuration, automatically reads the plant's configuration information from the engineering system through the developed interface, and efficiently analyzes the plant's risk Dy the intelligent parallel-computing method in order to provide the risk basement for the safety management of nuclear power plant. This paper generally introduces the background, architecture, functions and key technical features of a nuclear power plant Risk Monitor, and validates the risk result, which could well reflect the plant's risk information and has a significant practical value. (authors)

BARC-risk monitor- a tool for operational safety assessment in nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vinod, Gopika; Saraf, R.K.; Babar, A.K.; Hadap, Nikhil

2000-12-01

Probabilistic safety assessment has become a key tool as on today to identify and understand nuclear power plant vulnerabilities. As a result of the availability of these PSA studies, there is a desire to use them to enhance plant safety and to operate the nuclear stations in the most efficient manner. Risk monitor is a PC based tool, which computes the real time safety level and assists plant personnel to manage day-to-day activities. Risk monitor is a PC based user friendly software tool used for modification and re-analysis of a nuclear power plant. Operation of risk monitor is based on PSA methods for assisting in day to day applications. Risk monitoring programs can assess the risk profile and are used to optimise the operation of nuclear power plants with respect to a minimum risk level over the operating time. This report presents the background activities of risk monitor, its application areas and also gives the status of such tools in international scenarios. The software is based on the PSA model of Kaiga generating station and would be applicable to similar design configuration. (author)

Supervisory monitoring system in nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ciftcioglu, O.; Turkcan, E.

1997-01-01

Monitoring of a power plant is one of the essential tasks during operation and the computer-based implementations are nowadays seemingly quite mature. However, presently these are still not satisfactory enough to meet the high standards to the licensing requirements and they are mostly not truly integrated to the plant's design-based monitoring system. This is basically due to the robustness problem as the majority of the methods are not robust enough for the monitoring of the safety parameter set in a plant or intelligent supervision. Therefore, a supervisory monitoring system (SMS) in a plant is necessary to supervise the monitoring tasks: determining the objectives to be obtained and finding the means to support them. SMS deals with the changing plant status and the coordination of the information flow among the monitoring subunits. By means of these robustness and consistency in monitoring is achieved. The paper will give the guidelines of knowledge and data management techniques in a framework of robust comprehensive and coordinated monitoring which is presented as supervisory monitoring. Such a high level monitoring serves for consistent and immediate actions in fault situations while this particularly has vital importance in preventing imminent severe accidents next to the issues of recognition of the monitoring procedures for licensing and enhanced plant safety. (author). 8 refs, 5 figs

Nuclear reactor instrumentation power monitor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Suzuki, Shigeru.

1989-01-01

The present invention concerns a nuclear reactor instrumentation power monitor that can be used in, for example, BWR type nuclear power plants. Signals from multi-channel detectors disposed on field units are converted respectively by LPRM signal circuits. Then, the converted signals are further converted by a multiplexer into digital signals and transmitted as serial data to a central monitor unit. The thus transmitted serial data are converted into parallel data in the signal processing section of the central monitor unit. Then, LPRM signals are taken out from each of channel detectors to conduct mathematical processing such as trip judgment or averaging. Accordingly, the field unit and the central monitor unit can be connected by way of only one data transmission cable thereby enabling to reduce the number of cables. Further, since the data are transmitted on digital form, it less undergoes effect of noises. (I.S.)

Reactor power monitoring device

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dogen, Ayumi; Ozawa, Michihiro.

1983-01-01

Purpose: To significantly improve the working efficiency of a nuclear reactor by reflecting the control rod history effect on thermal variants required for the monitoring of the reactor operation. Constitution: An incore power distribution calculation section reads the incore neutron fluxes detected by neutron detectors disposed in the reactor to calculate the incore power distribution. A burnup degree distribution calculation section calculates the burnup degree distribution in the reactor based on the thus calculated incore power distribution. A control rod history date store device supplied with the burnup degree distribution renews the stored control rod history data based on the present control rod pattern and the burnup degree distribution. Then, thermal variants of the nuclear reactor are calculated based on the thus renewed control rod history data. Since the control rod history effect is reflected on the thermal variants required for the monitoring of the reactor operation, the working efficiency of the nuclear reactor can be improved significantly. (Seki, T.)

Acoustic power delivery to pipeline monitoring wireless sensors.

Science.gov (United States)

Kiziroglou, M E; Boyle, D E; Wright, S W; Yeatman, E M

2017-05-01

The use of energy harvesting for powering wireless sensors is made more challenging in most applications by the requirement for customization to each specific application environment because of specificities of the available energy form, such as precise location, direction and motion frequency, as well as the temporal variation and unpredictability of the energy source. Wireless power transfer from dedicated sources can overcome these difficulties, and in this work, the use of targeted ultrasonic power transfer as a possible method for remote powering of sensor nodes is investigated. A powering system for pipeline monitoring sensors is described and studied experimentally, with a pair of identical, non-inertial piezoelectric transducers used at the transmitter and receiver. Power transmission of 18mW (Root-Mean-Square) through 1m of a118mm diameter cast iron pipe, with 8mm wall thickness is demonstrated. By analysis of the delay between transmission and reception, including reflections from the pipeline edges, a transmission speed of 1000m/s is observed, corresponding to the phase velocity of the L(0,1) axial and F(1,1) radial modes of the pipe structure. A reduction of power delivery with water-filling is observed, yet over 4mW of delivered power through a fully-filled pipe is demonstrated. The transmitted power and voltage levels exceed the requirements for efficient power management, including rectification at cold-starting conditions, and for the operation of low-power sensor nodes. The proposed powering technique may allow the implementation of energy autonomous wireless sensor systems for monitoring industrial and network pipeline infrastructure. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Power distribution monitor for nuclear reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nishizawa, Yasuo; Kiguchi, Takashi.

1974-01-01

Object: To compare the measured local power region monitor (LPRM) index with the result of a primary calculation to correct the threshold condition for the primary calculation thereby to rapidly grasp and monitor the existing power distribution. Structure: The index of an LPRM disposed in a nuclear reactor is processed in a data processor to remove therefrom a noise, and transmitted to a threshold condition processor to be stored therein. The LPRM index measured by the threshold condition processor is compared with the calculated LPRM value transmitted from the primary processor, whereby the threshold condition is corrected and transmitted to the primary processor. After the completion of calculation, the traversing incore probe (TIP) indexing value is converted to a thermal output distribution or a linear output density distribution and transmitted to an output indicator or an output typewriter. The operator may monitor the existing power distribution by monitoring the output indicator. (Kamimura, M.)

Monitoring support system for nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Higashikawa, Yuichi; Kubota, Rhuji; Tanaka, Keiji; Takano, Yoshiyuki

1996-01-01

The nuclear power plants in Japan reach to 49 plants and supply 41.19 million kW in their installed capacities, which is equal to about 31% of total electric power generation and has occupied an important situation as a stable energy supplying source. As an aim to keeping safe operation and working rate of the power plants, various monitoring support systems using computer technology, optical information technology and robot technology each advanced rapidly in recent year have been developed to apply to the actual plants for a plant state monitoring system of operators in normal operation. Furthermore, introduction of the emergent support system supposed on accidental formation of abnormal state of the power plants is also investigated. In this paper, as a monitoring system in the recent nuclear power plants, design of control panel of recent central control room, introduction to its actual plant and monitoring support system in development were described in viewpoints of improvement of human interface, upgrade of sensor and signal processing techniques, and promotion of information service technique. And, trend of research and development of portable miniature detector and emergent monitoring support system are also introduced in a viewpoint of labor saving and upgrade of the operating field. (G.K.)

Research on intelligent monitor for 3D power distribution of reactor core

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xia, Hong; Li, Bin; Liu, Jianxin

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Core power distribution of ex-core measurement system has been reconstructed. • Building up an artificial intelligence model for 3-D core power distribution. • Error of the experiments has been reduced to 0.76%. • Methods for improving the accuracy of the model have been obtained. - Abstract: A real-time monitor for 3D reactor power distribution is critical for nuclear safety and high efficiency of NPP’s operation as well as for optimizing the control system, especially when the nuclear power plant (NPP) works at a certain power level or it works in load following operation. This paper was based on analyzing the monitor for 3D reactor power distribution technologies used in modern NPPs. Furthermore, considering the latest research outcomes, the paper proposed a method based on using an ex-core neutron detector system and a neural network to set up a real time monitor system for reactor’s 3D power distribution supervision. The results of the experiments performed on a reactor simulation machine illustrated that the new monitor system worked very well for a certain burn-up range during the fuel cycle. In addition, this new model could reduce the errors associated with the fitting of the distribution effectively, and several optimization methods were also obtained to improve the accuracy of the simulation model

Axial power monitoring uncertainty in the Savannah River Reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Losey, D.C.; Revolinski, S.M.

1990-01-01

The results of this analysis quantified the uncertainty associated with monitoring the Axial Power Shape (APS) in the Savannah River Reactors. Thermocouples at each assembly flow exit map the radial power distribution and are the primary means of monitoring power in these reactors. The remaining uncertainty in power monitoring is associated with the relative axial power distribution. The APS is monitored by seven sensors that respond to power on each of nine vertical Axial Power Monitor (APM) rods. Computation of the APS uncertainty, for the reactor power limits analysis, started with a large database of APM rod measurements spanning several years of reactor operation. A computer algorithm was used to randomly select a sample of APSs which were input to a code. This code modeled the thermal-hydraulic performance of a single fuel assembly during a design basis Loss-of Coolant Accident. The assembly power limit at Onset of Significant Voiding was computed for each APS. The output was a distribution of expected assembly power limits that was adjusted to account for the biases caused by instrumentation error and by measuring 7 points rather than a continuous APS. Statistical analysis of the final assembly power limit distribution showed that reducing reactor power by approximately 3% was sufficient to account for APS variation. This data confirmed expectations that the assembly exit thermocouples provide all information needed for monitoring core power. The computational analysis results also quantified the contribution to power limits of the various uncertainties such as instrumentation error

Environmental radiation monitoring system in nuclear power station

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Matsuoka, Sadazumi; Tadachi, Katsuo; Endo, Mamoru; Yuya, Hiroshi

1983-01-01

At the time of the construction of nuclear power stations, prior to their start of operation, the state of environmental radiation must be grasped. After the start of the power stations, based on those data, the system of environmental radiation monitoring is established. Along with the construction of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station, The Tokyo Electric Power Co., Inc. jointly with Fujitsu Ltd. has developed a high-reliability, environmental radiation monitoring system, and adopted ''optical data highways'' using optical fiber cables for communication. It consists of a central monitoring station and 11 telemeter observation points, for collecting both radiation and meteorological data. The data sent to the central station through the highways are then outputted on a monitoring panel. They are analyzed with a central processor, and the results are printed out. (Mori, K.)

Power monitoring and control for large scale projects: SKA, a case study

Science.gov (United States)

Barbosa, Domingos; Barraca, João. Paulo; Maia, Dalmiro; Carvalho, Bruno; Vieira, Jorge; Swart, Paul; Le Roux, Gerhard; Natarajan, Swaminathan; van Ardenne, Arnold; Seca, Luis

2016-07-01

Large sensor-based science infrastructures for radio astronomy like the SKA will be among the most intensive datadriven projects in the world, facing very high demanding computation, storage, management, and above all power demands. The geographically wide distribution of the SKA and its associated processing requirements in the form of tailored High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities, require a Greener approach towards the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) adopted for the data processing to enable operational compliance to potentially strict power budgets. Addressing the reduction of electricity costs, improve system power monitoring and the generation and management of electricity at system level is paramount to avoid future inefficiencies and higher costs and enable fulfillments of Key Science Cases. Here we outline major characteristics and innovation approaches to address power efficiency and long-term power sustainability for radio astronomy projects, focusing on Green ICT for science and Smart power monitoring and control.

Condition monitoring and maintenance of nuclear power plant concrete structures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Orr, R.; Prasad, N.

1988-01-01

Nuclear power plant concrete structures are potentially subject to deterioration due to several environmental conditions, including weather exposure, ground water exposure, and sustained high temperature and radiation levels. The nuclear power plant are generally licensed for a term of 40 years. In order to maximize the return from the existing plants, feasibility studies are in progress for continued operation of many of these plants beyond the original licensed life span. This paper describes a study that was performed with an objective to define appropriate condition monitoring and maintenance procedures. A timely implementation of a condition monitoring and maintenance program would provide a valuable database and would provide justification for extension of the plant's design life. The study included concrete structures such as the containment buildings, interior structures, basemats, intake structures and cooling towers. Age-related deterioration at several operating power plants was surveyed and the potential degradation mechanisms have been identified

Voices of nuclear-power monitors in fiscal 1981

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1983-01-01

The system of ''nuclear-power monitors'', started in fiscal 1977, is for the purpose of hearing the opinions of general people on nuclear power development and utilization and reflecting the results to the governmental nuclear power administration. The number of monitors in fiscal 1981 is a total of 504. The results in the fiscal year are described: (1) Questionnaire survey: The survey was made from March 10 to 25, 1982. Of the total, 355 (70.4%) answered the questions concerning the following matters: the future of energy, the development of nuclear power, the administration of nuclear power safety, and nuclear power public relations. (2) Voices (opinion) sent by the monitors: Of the total 150 items sent from September, 1981, to March, 1982, 48 concerned public relations, 26 were about the development and utilization and 25 were about the safety. (Mori, K.)

Float level switch for a nuclear power plant containment vessel

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Powell, J.G.

1993-01-01

This invention is a float level switch used to sense rise or drop in water level in a containment vessel of a nuclear power plant during a loss of coolant accident. The essential components of the device are a guide tube, a reed switch inside the guide tube, a float containing a magnetic portion that activates a reed switch, and metal-sheathed, ceramic-insulated conductors connecting the reed switch to a monitoring system outside the containment vessel. Special materials and special sealing techniques prevent failure of components and allow the float level switch to be connected to a monitoring system outside the containment vessel. 1 figures

Float level switch for a nuclear power plant containment vessel

Science.gov (United States)

Powell, James G.

1993-01-01

This invention is a float level switch used to sense rise or drop in water level in a containment vessel of a nuclear power plant during a loss of coolant accident. The essential components of the device are a guide tube, a reed switch inside the guide tube, a float containing a magnetic portion that activates a reed switch, and metal-sheathed, ceramic-insulated conductors connecting the reed switch to a monitoring system outside the containment vessel. Special materials and special sealing techniques prevent failure of components and allow the float level switch to be connected to a monitoring system outside the containment vessel.

Assessing Power Monitoring Approaches for Energy and Power Analysis of Computers

OpenAIRE

El Mehdi Diouria, Mohammed; Dolz Zaragozá, Manuel Francisco; Glückc, Olivier; Lefèvre, Laurent; Alonso, Pedro; Catalán Pallarés, Sandra; Mayo, Rafael; Quintana Ortí, Enrique S.

2014-01-01

Large-scale distributed systems (e.g., datacenters, HPC systems, clouds, large-scale networks, etc.) consume and will consume enormous amounts of energy. Therefore, accurately monitoring the power dissipation and energy consumption of these systems is more unavoidable. The main novelty of this contribution is the analysis and evaluation of different external and internal power monitoring devices tested using two different computing systems, a server and a desktop machine. Furthermore, we prov...

Application of Equipment Monitoring Technology in Nuclear Power Plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kang, H. T.; Lee, J. K.; Lee, K. D.; Jo, S. H.

2012-01-01

The major goal of nuclear power industries during the past 10 years is to increase reliability and utility capacity factor. As the capacitor factor, however, crept upward. it became harder to attain next percentage of improvement. Therefore other innovative technologies are required. By the technologies applied to the fossil power plants, equipment health monitoring was performed on equipment to maintain it in operable condition and contributed on improving their reliability a lot. But the equipment monitoring may be limited to the observation of current system states in nuclear power plant. Monitoring of current system states is being augmented with prediction of future operating states and predictive diagnosis of future failure states. Such predictive diagnosis is motivated by the need for nuclear power plants to optimize equipment performance and reduce costs and unscheduled downtime. This paper reviews the application of techniques that focus on improving reliability in nuclear power plant by monitoring and predicting equipment health and suggests how possible to support on-line monitoring

Remote Working Level Monitor. Final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1977-01-01

The Remote Working Level Monitor (RWLM) is an instrument used to remotely monitor the RN-daughter concentrations and the Working Level (WL). It is an ac powered, microprocessor based instrument which multiplexes two independent detector units to a single central processor unit (CPU). The CPU controls the actuation of the detector units and processes and outputs the data received from these remote detector units. The remote detector units are fully automated and require no manual operation once they are set up. They detect and separate the alpha emitters of RaA and RaC' as well as detecting the beta emitters of RaB and RaC. The resultant pulses from these detected radioisotopes are transmitted to the CPU for processing. The programmed microprocessor performs the mathematical manipulations necessary to output accurate Rn-daughter concentrations and the WL. A special subroutine within the program enables the RWLM to run and output a calibration procedure on command. The data resulting from this request can then be processed in a separate program on most computers capable of BASIC programming. The calibration program results in the derivation of coefficients and beta efficiencies which provides calibrated coefficients and beta efficiencies

Environmental monitoring around nuclear power plants of EDF in France

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chretien, V.; Hemidy, P.Y.

2010-01-01

As part of the regulatory environmental monitoring around its nuclear power plants, EDF carries out every year more than 40.000 measurements. In addition EDF performs more precise radioecological surveys on all its sites. This monitoring shows the minor incidence of EDF's nuclear power plants on the environment and a general decrease of gamma emitters radionuclides in the environment. These results confirm the efforts lead by EDF to minimise its impacts on the environment, linked to an efficient waste management and demonstrate the good operating standards of its plants. On a qualitative viewpoint, significant efforts on both metrology and organization have lead to improved measurements capabilities, in order to achieve NF EN ISO/CEI 17025 standard compliance. More recently, a similar approach has been implemented with sampling methods. While today the level achieved in the number and quality of measurement complies with the objectives of the monitoring of the impact of the nuclear power plants on the environment, the results of this monitoring should be presented to the public with more pedagogy to give an adequate answer to their expectations. The new questions that will undoubtedly be raised by the recent availability of this information on the Internet should reinforce this dialogue and should also be the opportunity to improve the quality of our communication. (author)

Monitoring Your Blood Sugar Level

Science.gov (United States)

... and NutritionHealth Insurance: Understanding What It CoversHigh Homocysteine Level: How It Affects Your Blood VesselsUnderstanding Your Medical ... Health Resources Healthcare Management Monitoring Your Blood Sugar Level Monitoring Your Blood Sugar Level Share Print What ...

Westinghouse power distribution monitoring experience at Duke Power's McGuire Unit 1

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Grobmyer, L.R.; Cash, M.T.; Kitlan, M.S.; Impink, A.J. Jr.

1987-01-01

In the evolution of the Westinghouse methodology of assuring safe core power distributions, emphasis was placed on analysis and not on continuous detailed core monitoring. Power distribution monitoring is currently achieved by periodic surveillances using the movable in-core detector system (MIDS) and by continuous observations of the two-section excore power range detectors. Control of the power distribution is regulated by limits on the indications from these systems, by limits on control rod insertion, and by operational constraints on the position indication systems. As more plants come on line and as more utilities take over the fuel design function for themselves, the desire for better core monitoring becomes evident. Also, the need and desire by the utilities to have more control over their operating margin has motivated the industry to offer and/or upgrade core monitoring systems. Westinghouse and Duke Power are participants in a joint development program to finalize the development of the core on-line surveillance monitoring and operations system (COSMOS). This final stage of development consists of prototype field trials at the McGuire Nuclear Plant. The purpose of the prototype program is to determine how well the design objectives are met and how to improve the system based on the operating experience at McGuire. Another purpose of this prototype program is to generate the necessary experience and information to develop a topical report for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to obtain a licensing basis for technical specification relaxation

Wide Area Measurement Based Security Assessment & Monitoring of Modern Power System: A Danish Power System Case Study

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rather, Zakir Hussain; Chen, Zhe; Thøgersen, Paul

2013-01-01

Power System security has become a major concern across the global power system community. This paper presents wide area measurement system (WAMS) based security assessment and monitoring of modern power system. A new three dimensional security index (TDSI) has been proposed for online security...... monitoring of modern power system with large scale renewable energy penetration. Phasor measurement unit (PMU) based WAMS has been implemented in western Danish Power System to realize online security monitoring and assessment in power system control center. The proposed security monitoring system has been...

We Need to Talk... Developing Communicating Power Supplies to Monitor & Control Miscellaneous Electric Loads

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Weber, Andrew; Lanzisera, Steven; Liao, Anna; Meier, Alan

2014-08-11

Plug loads represent 30percent of total electricity use in residential buildings. Significant energy savings would result from an accurate understanding of which miscellaneous electric devices are using energy, at what time, and in what quantity. Commercially available plug load monitoring and control solutions replace or limit the attached device's native controls - forcing the user to adapt to a separate set of controls associated with the monitoring and control hardware. A better solution is integration of these capabilities at the power supply level. In this paper, we demonstrate a method achieving this integration. Our solution allows unobtrusive power monitoring and control while retaining native device control features. Further, our prototype enables intelligent behaviors by allowing devices to respond to the state of one another automatically. The CPS enables energy savings while demonstrating an added level of functionality to the user. If CPS technology became widespread in devices, a combination of automated and human interactive solutions would enable high levels of energy savings in buildings.

Reactor Emergency Action Level Monitor: Knowledge acquisition experiences

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Touchton, R.A.

1987-01-01

This paper presents the Knowledge Acquisition experiences in developing the Reactor Emergency Action Level Monitor (REALM) Expert System Prototype. REALM is an expert system which interprets plant sensor data and provides advice on the proper emergency classification. The REALM project is being funded by the Electric Power Research Institute, Consolidated Edison is serving as the host utility, and the effort is being conducted by Technology Applications, Inc. REALM is being designed to provide expert assistance in the identification of a nuclear power plant emergency situation and the determination of its severity, ultimately operating in a real-time, on-line processing environment. The paper discusses briefly the direct knowledge acquisition techniques used by the project team (who are themselves power industry engineers), to extract relevant knowledge from plant specifications and procedures

Trends of chemical monitoring in power stations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Winkler, R.; Venz, H.

1983-01-01

Frequently, the state-of-the-art of chemical monitoring in power plants is still determined by conservative methods. A thorough rationalization requires not only modern analytical procedures, but also the consideration of chemically affected processes in complex process analyses and the combination of automatic analyzers with available process computers. Using some examples, ways of reducing monitoring efforts without impairing safety and economy of nuclear power plant operation are pointed out. (author)

Development of an Ion Chamber for Monitoring the Containment of a Nuclear Power Plant

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Song, Tae-Yung; Kim, Han-Soo; Park, Se-Hwan; Ha, Jang-Ho [Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2008-05-15

Nuclear power plants need many different types of radiation detectors for different purposes. Neutron detectors are installed inside and outside of the core to check the neutron flux. Scintillation detectors are used to check the fission products included in the liquids and gases of plant system. Geiger-Mueller counters are used for the area radiation monitoring. In addition to the above-mentioned detectors, ion chambers are installed to monitor radiation level of the containment. A few ion chambers are located within the reactor containment to monitor radiation level of an accident case. Therefore, the ion chamber should be capable of monitoring high level radiation dose up to 10{sup 7} R/h. Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) developed an ion chamber for monitoring the radiation dose inside the containment.

Advanced Detection Technology of Trace-level Borate for SG Leakage Monitoring

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Seban; Kang, Dukwon; Kim, Seungil; Kim, Hyunki; Heo, Jun; Sung, Jinhyun [Radiation Eng. Center, Shihung (Korea, Republic of); Lee, Dongbum [Academic Support Dept., Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

2013-05-15

Many studies have been reported for monitoring technology of steam generator, however, all of these methods have their own limitations. The leakage monitoring technology of steam generator of PWR has also got a limit due to the adoption of specific radionuclides (N-16, Ar-41, H-3, Xe, etc.) generated by nuclear fission, which are available only when reactor output is 20% or more. Most of domestic NPPs apply the N-16 technique for monitoring tube leakage but it has some problem that it is difficult to calculate the leakage rate because neutron flux are not completely formed during low power operation. For example, tube leakage of steam generator occurred in the Uljin nuclear power plant in 2002 during coast down operation for periodic plant maintenance. This plant could not prevent a rupture accident in advance because N-16 method is not possible the leak monitoring less than 20% reactor power. The development of excellent alternative monitoring technology that can monitor the real-time leakage is required under a variety of operating conditions like start-up and abnormal conditions of NPPs. This study was performed to lay a foundation in monitoring the leakage of steam generator coping with the lower output and low power operational condition using trace level of boron which is non-radioactive nuclide to inject control neutron injection. In this study, non-radioactive nuclide boron ion, which existed in the secondary system water, as leakage monitoring indicator was investigated for the separation of complex cation and anion phase. Borate was detected by using borate concentrator column coupled with the ion-exclusion column analytical column, revealing the problem of overlapped peak between fluoride and boron ions. Meanwhile, ion-exchange column could confirm the possibility as a leakage monitoring indicator of steam generator, despite the peak of glycolic acid salts was slightly overlapped. It will be needed for further research regarding the selectivity of the

Advanced Detection Technology of Trace-level Borate for SG Leakage Monitoring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Seban; Kang, Dukwon; Kim, Seungil; Kim, Hyunki; Heo, Jun; Sung, Jinhyun; Lee, Dongbum

2013-01-01

Many studies have been reported for monitoring technology of steam generator, however, all of these methods have their own limitations. The leakage monitoring technology of steam generator of PWR has also got a limit due to the adoption of specific radionuclides (N-16, Ar-41, H-3, Xe, etc.) generated by nuclear fission, which are available only when reactor output is 20% or more. Most of domestic NPPs apply the N-16 technique for monitoring tube leakage but it has some problem that it is difficult to calculate the leakage rate because neutron flux are not completely formed during low power operation. For example, tube leakage of steam generator occurred in the Uljin nuclear power plant in 2002 during coast down operation for periodic plant maintenance. This plant could not prevent a rupture accident in advance because N-16 method is not possible the leak monitoring less than 20% reactor power. The development of excellent alternative monitoring technology that can monitor the real-time leakage is required under a variety of operating conditions like start-up and abnormal conditions of NPPs. This study was performed to lay a foundation in monitoring the leakage of steam generator coping with the lower output and low power operational condition using trace level of boron which is non-radioactive nuclide to inject control neutron injection. In this study, non-radioactive nuclide boron ion, which existed in the secondary system water, as leakage monitoring indicator was investigated for the separation of complex cation and anion phase. Borate was detected by using borate concentrator column coupled with the ion-exclusion column analytical column, revealing the problem of overlapped peak between fluoride and boron ions. Meanwhile, ion-exchange column could confirm the possibility as a leakage monitoring indicator of steam generator, despite the peak of glycolic acid salts was slightly overlapped. It will be needed for further research regarding the selectivity of the

Events as Power Source: Wireless Sustainable Corrosion Monitoring

OpenAIRE

Sun, Guodong; Qiao, Guofu; Zhao, Lin; Chen, Zhibo

2013-01-01

This study presents and implements a corrosion-monitoring wireless sensor platform, EPS (Events as Power Source), which monitors the corrosion events in reinforced concrete (RC) structures, while being powered by the micro-energy released from the corrosion process. In EPS, the proposed corrosion-sensing device serves both as the signal source for identifying corrosion and as the power source for driving the sensor mote, because the corrosion process (event) releases electric energy; this is ...

The system of the measurement of reactor power and the monitoring of core power distribution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Xianfeng

1999-01-01

The author mainly describes the measurement of the reactor power and the monitoring of the core power distribution in DAYA BAY nuclear power plant, introduces the calibration for the measurement system. Ex-core nuclear instrumentation system (RPN) and LOCA surveillance system (LSS) are the most important system for the object. they perform the measurement of the reactor power and the monitoring of the core power distribution on-line and timely. They also play the important roles in the reactor control and the reactor protection. For the same purpose there are test instrumentation system (KME) and in-core instrumentation system (RIC). All of them work together ensuring the exact measurement and effective monitoring, ensuring the safety of the reactor power plant

Environmental wodking level monitor. Final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Keefe, D; McDowell, W.P.; Groer, P.G.

1978-01-01

The Environmental Working Level Monitor (EWLM) is an instrument used to automatically monitor airborne Rn-daughter concentrations and the Working Level (WL). It is an ac powered, microprocessor--based instrument with an external inverter provided for dc operation if desired. The microprocessor's control processor unit (CPU) controls the actuation of the detector assembly and processes its output signals to yield the measurements in the proper units. The detectors are fully automated and require no manual operations once the instrument is programmed. They detect and separate the alpha emitters of RaA and RaC' as well as detecting the beta emitters of RaB and RaC. The resultant pulses from these detected radioisotopes are transmitted to the CPU. The programmed microprocessor performs the mathematical manipulations necessary to output accurate Rn-daughter concentrations and the WL. A special subroutine within the system program enables the EWLM to run a calibration procedure on command which yields calibration data. This data can then be processed in a separate program on most computers capable of BASIC programming. This calibration program results in the derivation of coefficients and beta efficiencies which provides the calibrated coefficients and beta efficiencies required by the main system program to assure proper calibration of the individual EWLM's

An Intelligent Sensor for the Ultra-High-Frequency Partial Discharge Online Monitoring of Power Transformers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jian Li

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Ultra-high-frequency (UHF partial discharge (PD online monitoring is an effective way to inspect potential faults and insulation defects in power transformers. The construction of UHF PD online monitoring system is a challenge because of the high-frequency and wide-frequency band of the UHF PD signal. This paper presents a novel, intelligent sensor for UHF PD online monitoring based on a new method, namely a level scanning method. The intelligent sensor can directly acquire the statistical characteristic quantities and is characterized by low cost, few data to output and transmit, Ethernet functionality, and small size for easy installation. The prototype of an intelligent sensor was made. Actual UHF PD experiments with three typical artificial defect models of power transformers were carried out in a laboratory, and the waveform recording method and intelligent sensor proposed were simultaneously used for UHF PD measurement for comparison. The results show that the proposed intelligent sensor is qualified for the UHF PD online monitoring of power transformers. Additionally, three methods to improve the performance of intelligent sensors were proposed according to the principle of the level scanning method.

Monitoring device for local power peaking coefficients

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mihashi, Ishi

1987-01-01

Purpose: To determine and monitor the local power peaking coefficients by a method not depending on the combination of fuel types. Constitution: Representative values for the local power distribution can be obtained by determining corresponding burn-up degrees based on the burn-up degree of each of fuel assembly segments obtained in a power distribution monitor and by the interpolation and extrapolation of void coefficients. The typical values are multiplied with compensation coefficients for the control rod effect and coefficients for compensating the effect of adjacent fuel assemblies in a calculation device to obtain typical values for the present local power distribution compensated with all of the effects. Further, the calculation device compares them with typical values of the present local power distribution to obtain an aimed local power peaking coefficient as the maximum value thereof. According to the present invention, since the local power peaking coefficients can be determined not depending on the combination of the kind of fuels, if the combination of fuel assemblies is increased upon fuel change, the amount of operation therefor is not increased. (Kamimura, M.)

Monitoring Biological Activity at Geothermal Power Plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Peter Pryfogle

2005-09-01

The economic impact of microbial growth in geothermal power plants has been estimated to be as high as $500,000 annually for a 100 MWe plant. Many methods are available to monitor biological activity at these facilities; however, very few plants have any on-line monitoring program in place. Metal coupon, selective culturing (MPN), total organic carbon (TOC), adenosine triphosphate (ATP), respirometry, phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA), and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) characterizations have been conducted using water samples collected from geothermal plants located in California and Utah. In addition, the on-line performance of a commercial electrochemical monitor, the BIoGEORGE?, has been evaluated during extended deployments at geothermal facilities. This report provides a review of these techniques, presents data on their application from laboratory and field studies, and discusses their value in characterizing and monitoring biological activities at geothermal power plants.

A real time status monitor for transistor bank driver power limit resistor in boost injection kicker power supply

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mi, J.; Tan, Y.; Zhang, W.

2011-03-28

For years suffering of Booster Injection Kicker transistor bank driver regulator troubleshooting, a new real time monitor system has been developed. A simple and floating circuit has been designed and tested. This circuit monitor system can monitor the driver regulator power limit resistor status in real time and warn machine operator if the power limit resistor changes values. This paper will mainly introduce the power supply and the new designed monitoring system. This real time resistor monitor circuit shows a useful method to monitor some critical parts in the booster pulse power supply. After two years accelerator operation, it shows that this monitor works well. Previously, we spent a lot of time in booster machine trouble shooting. We will reinstall all 4 PCB into Euro Card Standard Chassis when the power supply system will be updated.

D and B monitors for Z-vacuum-section power-flow measurements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stygar, W.A.; Spielman, R.B.; Ives, H.C.

1997-01-01

The 36-module Z accelerator--designed to drive z-pinch loads at currents up to 20 MA--is contained in a 33-m-diameter tank with oil, water, and vacuum sections. The peak total forward-going power in the 36 water-section bi-plate transmission lines is approximately 63 TW. nine transmission lines deliver power to each of the four vacuum-section levels (referred to as levels A (the uppermost), B, C, and D). New differential D and B monitors were developed for the Z vacuum section. The Ds measure voltage at the insulator stack. The Bs measure current at the stack and in the outer magnetically-insulated transmission lines. Each monitor has two outputs that allow common-mode noise to be canceled to first order. The differential D has one signal and one noise channel; the differential B has two signal channels with opposite polarities. Each of the two B sensors in the differential B monitor has four 3-mm-diameter loops and is encased in copper to reduce flux penetration. For both types of probes, two 2.2-mm-diameter coaxial-cables connect the outputs to a Prodyn balun for common-mode-noise rejection. The cables provide reasonable bandwidth and generate acceptable levels of Compton drive in Z's bremsstrahlung field. A new cavity B is being developed to measure the total Z current 4.3 cm from the axis of the z-pinch load. All of the sensors are calibrated with 2--4% accuracy. The monitor signals are reduced with Barth or Weinschel attenuators, recorded on Tektronix 0.5-ns/sample digitizing oscilloscopes, and software cable compensated and integrated

Development of a VxWorks-based distributed power quality monitoring system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shin, M.J.; Kim, S.J.; Son, Y.I.; Kang, S.H. [Myongji Univ., Yongin (Korea, Republic of). Next-generation Power Technology Center

2007-07-01

Electric utilities are becoming increasingly concerned about power quality because end user equipment is more sensitive to disturbances within the power supply system and also within the consumer facilities. In order to improve the quality of electricity, the sources and causes of disturbances must be known. However, voltage sag and swell, wave-faults and momentary interruptions are difficult to detect and avoid unless power quality monitoring devices are installed permanently. The impact that alternative energy sources have on power quality was also discussed. When distributed generation is connected to the power grid, it can generate and supply more reliable power to the grid. For a reliable interconnection of distributed power to the grid, monitoring systems should display the status of distributed power and record power events. Lack of source stability in distributed generation such as solar-cells or wind-power creates events that should be measured and stored immediately. This paper presented a newly developed real-time power quality monitoring system for distributed power systems. The system is based on a real-time operating system (OS) and can therefore handle many events that happen simultaneously. The proposed system contains a digital signal processor (MPC7410, Motorola) and an A/D board (VMIVME3122, GE). VxWorks was used to implement the monitoring algorithm. This paper outlined the structure and the functions of the developed Distributed Power Quality Monitoring System. Some experiments were conducted to test the performance of the proposed system. According to test results, the system is compatible with standards of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for power quality monitoring. 15 refs., 1 tab., 18 figs.

Centralized operation and monitoring system for nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kudo, Mitsuru; Sato, Hideyuki; Murata, Fumio

1988-01-01

According to the prospect of long term energy demand, in 2000, the nuclear power generation facilities in Japan are expected to take 15.9% of the total energy demand. From this fact, it is an important subject to supply nuclear power more stably, and in the field of instrumentation and control, many researches and developments and the incessant effort of improvement have been continued. In the central operation and monitoring system which is the center of the stable operation of nuclear power plants, the man-machine technology aiding operators by electronic and computer application technologies has been positively developed and applied. It is considered that hereafter, for the purpose of rationally heightening the operation reliability of the plants, the high quality man-machine system freely using the most advanced technologies such as high reliability digital technology, optical information transmission, knowledge engineering and so on is developed and applied. The technical trend of operation and monitoring system, the concept of heightening operation and monitoring capability, the upgrading of operation and monitoring system, and the latest operation, monitoring and control systems for nuclear power plants and waste treatment facilities are described. (K.I.)

Intelligent Component Monitoring for Nuclear Power Plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tsoukalas, Lefteri

2010-01-01

Reliability and economy are two major concerns for a nuclear power generation system. Next generation nuclear power reactors are being developed to be more reliable and economic. An effective and efficient surveillance system can generously contribute toward this goal. Recent progress in computer systems and computational tools has made it necessary and possible to upgrade current surveillance/monitoring strategy for better performance. For example, intelligent computing techniques can be applied to develop algorithm that help people better understand the information collected from sensors and thus reduce human error to a new low level. Incidents incurred from human error in nuclear industry are not rare and have been proven costly. The goal of this project is to develop and test an intelligent prognostics methodology for predicting aging effects impacting long-term performance of nuclear components and systems. The approach is particularly suitable for predicting the performance of nuclear reactor systems which have low failure probabilities (e.g., less than 10 -6 year -1 ). Such components and systems are often perceived as peripheral to the reactor and are left somewhat unattended. That is, even when inspected, if they are not perceived to be causing some immediate problem, they may not be paid due attention. Attention to such systems normally involves long term monitoring and possibly reasoning with multiple features and evidence, requirements that are not best suited for humans.

Power monitoring in space nuclear reactors using silicon carbide radiation detectors

Science.gov (United States)

Ruddy, Frank H.; Patel, Jagdish U.; Williams, John G.

2005-01-01

Space reactor power monitors based on silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductor neutron detectors are proposed. Detection of fast leakage neutrons using SiC detectors in ex-core locations could be used to determine reactor power: Neutron fluxes, gamma-ray dose rates and ambient temperatures have been calculated as a function of distance from the reactor core, and the feasibility of power monitoring with SiC detectors has been evaluated at several ex-core locations. Arrays of SiC diodes can be configured to provide the required count rates to monitor reactor power from startup to full power Due to their resistance to temperature and the effects of neutron and gamma-ray exposure, SiC detectors can be expected to provide power monitoring information for the fill mission of a space reactor.

Monitoring power breakers using vibro acoustic techniques

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Horia Balan

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Speaking about the commutation’s equipment, it can be said that the best solution in increasing reliability and lowering the maintenance costs is a continuous monitoring of the equipment. However, if the price/quality ratio is considered, it is obvious that, for the moment, the diagnosis can be also an acceptable solution. Nowadays the predictive maintenance for equipment’s diagnosis is currently replacing the preventive diagnosis. An efficient modality of lowering the maintenance costs is to online monitoring the power breakers, during their operation in the power systems. Consequently any connecting/disconnecting operations may be used in diagnosing a power breaker. Thus any supplementary and superfluous tests and/or maintenance maneuvers are avoided. The paper presents the operational maintenance in a power station with three high voltage active breakers, Areva type. The method of establishing the state of a breaker consists in the comparison between the signature of the acoustic signal provided by the manufacturer and the signal issued from the testing operation of the breaker’s state. The software processing procedure and the methodology of determining the faults of the monitored equipment are also developed. All the tests on the circuit breaker are made according the prescriptions of normative.

Cutting device for spent local power range monitor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Watanabe, Shigeru; Tsuji, Teruaki.

1976-01-01

Purpose: To prevent radioactive contamination of the reactor water and simplify the operation of transferring the spent local power range monitor to a pool and preparation of the space for storing the monitor in the pool by arranging it such that the monitor is cut in the reactor water and that its cut end is closed in the reactor water. Constitution: A device for clamping a spent local power range monitor disposed within the reactor core and for cutting the monitor such that the content will not be exposed are supported by support means such that they are spaced apart in the vertical direction, and the support means is suspended in the reactor water such that it is movable relative to the monitor. Thus, there is no need to mount the cutter in any separately provided support means, and there is no possibility of exposure of the content since the cut end of the monitor is closed by the outer frame. It is therefore possible to prevent contamination of the reactor water. (Horiuchi, T.)

A radiation monitoring system for nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Iwai, Masaru; Nakamori, S.; Ikeda, H.; Oda, M.

1974-01-01

Safety with respect to radiation is vital factor, particularly in view of the increasing number of nuclear power plants. For this purpose, a radiation monitoring system is provided to perform constant supervision. This article describes the purpose, installation location, specifications and circuitry of a system which is divided into three units: the process monitor, area monitor and off-site monitor. (auth.)

Results and experiences from environmental monitoring at Rheinsberg nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ettenhuber, E.; Loennig, M.; Hoffmann, M.L.; Roehnsch, W.; Babenzien, C.; Lehmann, R.; Schreiter, W.D.

1975-12-01

The paper presents the routine monitoring program at the Rheinsberg nuclear power plant including the methods applied therein. On the basis of data gathered during 1966 to 1973 it is shown, that the impact of nuclear power plant operation on the radioactivity level of the examined environmental media was exceedingly small compared to that of global fallout. Therefore only by means of a system based on assessment of radiation exposure from effluent data and environmental surveillance is it possible to prove the observance of maximum permissible values to individual members of the public. (author)

Reactor power distribution monitor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sekimizu, Koichi

1980-01-01

Purpose: To improve the performance and secure the safety of a nuclear reactor by rapidly computing and display the power density in the nuclear reactor by using a plurality of processors. Constitution: Plant data for a nuclear reactor containing the measured values from a local power monitor LPRM are sent and recorded in a magnetic disc. They are also sent to a core performance computer in which burn-up degree distribution and the like are computed, and the results are sent and recorded in the magnetic disc. A central processors loads programs to each of the processors and applies data recorded in the magnetic disc to each of the processors. Each of the processors computes the corresponding power distribution in four fuel assemblies surrounding the LPRM string by the above information. The central processor compiles the computation results and displays them on a display. In this way, power distribution in the fuel assemblies can rapidly be computed to thereby secure the improvement of the performance and safety of the reactor. (Seki, T.)

Monitor and control device in a nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Neda, Toshikatsu.

1980-01-01

Purpose: To facilitate and ensure monitor and control, as well as improve the operation efficiency and save man power, by render the operation automatic utilizing a process computer and centralizing the monitor and control functions. Constitution: All of the operations from the start up to stop in a nuclear power plant are conducted by way of a monitor and control board. The process data for the nuclear power plant are read into the process computer and displayed on a CRT display. Controls are carried out respectively for the control rod on a control rod panel, for the feedwater rate on a feedwater control panel, for the recycling flow rate on a recycling control panel and for the turbine generator on a turbine control panel. When the operation is conducted by an automatic console, operation signals from the console are imputted into the process computer and the state of the power plant is monitored and automatic operation is carried out based on the operation signals and from signals from each of the panels. (Moriyama, K.)

Instrument failure monitoring in nuclear power systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tylee, J.L.

1982-01-01

Methods of monitoring dynamic systems for instrument failures were developed and evaluated. In particular, application of these methods to nuclear power plant components is addressed. For a linear system, statistical tests on the innovations sequence of a Kalman filter driven by all system measurements provides a failure detection decision and identifies any failed sensor. This sequence (in an unfailed system) is zero-mean with calculable covariance; hence, any major deviation from these properties is assumed to be due to an instrument failure. Once a failure is identified, the failed instrument is replaced with an optimal estimate of the measured parameter. This failure accommodation is accomplished using optimally combined data from a bank of accommodation Kalman filters (one for each sensor), each driven by a single measurement. Using such a sensor replacement allows continued system operation under failed conditions and provides a system operator with information otherwise unavailable. To demonstrate monitor performance, a liner failure monitor was developed for the pressurizer in the Loss-of-Fluid Test (LOFT) reactor plant. LOFT is a small-scale pressurized water reactor (PWR) research facility located at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. A linear, third-order model of the pressurizer dynamics was developed from first principles and validated. Using data from the LOFT L6 test series, numerous actual and simulated water level, pressure, and temperature sensor failures were employed to illustrate monitor capabilities. Failure monitor design was applied to nonlinear dynamic systems by replacing all monitor linear Kalman filters with extended Kalman filters. A nonlinear failure monitor was derived for LOFT reactor instrumentation. A sixth-order reactor model, including descriptions of reactor kinetics, fuel rod heat transfer, and core coolant dynamics, was obtained and verified with test data

Standalone, battery powered radiation monitors for accelerator electronics

CERN Document Server

Wijnands, T; Spiezia, G

2009-01-01

A technical description of the design of a new type of radiation monitors is given. The key point in the design is the low power consumption inferior to 17 mW in radiation sensing mode and inferior to 0.3 mW in standby mode. The radiation monitors can operate without any external power or signal cabling and measure and store radiation data for a maximum period of 800 days. To read the radiation data, a standard PC can be connected via a USB interface to the device at any time. Only a few seconds are required to read out a single monitor. This makes it possible to survey a large network of monitoring devices in a short period of time, for example during a stop of the accelerator.

Monitoring PWR reactor vessel liquid level with SPNDs during LOCAs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Adams, J.P.

1982-01-01

Data from in-core self-powered neutron detectors taken during two nuclear loss-of-coolant accident simulations have been correlated with core moderator density changes. The detector current attenuation has been calculated during blowdown and reflood phases of the simulation. Based on these data, it is concluded that these detectors could be used to monitor reactor vessel liquid level during loss-of-coolant accidents in pressurized water reactors

Threshold self-powered gamma detector for use as a monitor of power in a nuclear reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

LeVert, F.E.; Cox, S.A.

1978-01-01

A self-powered gamma monitor for placement near the core of a nuclear reactor comprises a lead prism surrounded by a coaxial thin nickel sheet, the combination forming a collector. A coaxial polyethylene electron barrier encloses the collector and is separated from the nickel sheet by a vacuum region. The electron barrier is enclosed by a coaxial stainless steel emitter which, in turn, is enclosed within a lead casing. When the detector is placed in a flux of gamma rays, a measure of the current flow in an external circuit between emitter and collector provides a measure of the power level of the reactor

Threshold self-powered gamma detector for use as a monitor of power in a nuclear reactor

Science.gov (United States)

LeVert, Francis E.; Cox, Samson A.

1978-01-01

A self-powered gamma monitor for placement near the core of a nuclear reactor comprises a lead prism surrounded by a coaxial thin nickel sheet, the combination forming a collector. A coaxial polyethylene electron barrier encloses the collector and is separated from the nickel sheet by a vacuum region. The electron barrier is enclosed by a coaxial stainless steel emitter which, in turn, is enclosed within a lead casing. When the detector is placed in a flux of gamma rays, a measure of the current flow in an external circuit between emitter and collector provides a measure of the power level of the reactor.

Self-Powered WSN for Distributed Data Center Monitoring

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Davide Brunelli

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Monitoring environmental parameters in data centers is gathering nowadays increasing attention from industry, due to the need of high energy efficiency of cloud services. We present the design and the characterization of an energy neutral embedded wireless system, prototyped to monitor perpetually environmental parameters in servers and racks. It is powered by an energy harvesting module based on Thermoelectric Generators, which converts the heat dissipation from the servers. Starting from the empirical characterization of the energy harvester, we present a power conditioning circuit optimized for the specific application. The whole system has been enhanced with several sensors. An ultra-low-power micro-controller stacked over the energy harvesting provides an efficient power management. Performance have been assessed and compared with the analytical model for validation.

Voices of nuclear power 'monitors' in fiscal 1985: results of the questionnaire

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1986-01-01

The system of nuclear power 'monitors' is to hear opinions etc. of the general people (i.e. of nuclear power monitors) on the nuclear power development and utilization and thereby to reflect the results in the nuclear power administration in Japan. The questionnairing survey by mail was made in June 1985 with 536 monitors across the country, of which 474 answered the questions. The results are described in the following: energies in the future, the development of nuclear power, the development of advanced-type reactors, the nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear power safety administration, nuclear hazard prevention, nuclear power PR activities. (Mori, K.)

Computer program analyzes and monitors electrical power systems (POSIMO)

Science.gov (United States)

Jaeger, K.

1972-01-01

Requirements to monitor and/or simulate electric power distribution, power balance, and charge budget are discussed. Computer program to analyze power system and generate set of characteristic power system data is described. Application to status indicators to denote different exclusive conditions is presented.

Dynamic Sleep Scheduling on Air Pollution Levels Monitoring with Wireless Sensor Network

OpenAIRE

Gezaq Abror; Rusminto Tjatur Widodo; M. Udin Harun Al Rasyid

2018-01-01

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) can be applied for Air Pollution Level Monitoring System that have been determined by the Environmental Impact Management Agency which is  PM10, SO2, O3, NO2 and CO. In WSN, node system is constrained to a limited power supply, so that the node system has a lifetime. To doing lifetime maximization, power management scheme is required and sensor nodes should use energy efficiently. This paper proposes dynamic sleep scheduling using Time Category-Fuzzy Logic (Time-...

Power distribution monitoring and control in the RBMK type reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Emel'yanov, I.Ya.; Postnikov, V.V.; Volod'ko, Yu.I.

1980-01-01

Considered are the structures of monitoring and control systems for the RBMK-1000 reactor including three main systems with high independence: the control and safety system (CSS); the system for physical control of energy distribution (SPCED) as well as the Scala system for centralized control (SCC). Main functions and peculiarities of each system are discussed. Main attention is paid to new structural solutions and new equipment components used in these systems. Described are the RBMK operation software and routine of energy distribution control in it. It is noted that the set of reactor control and monitoring systems has a hierarchical structure, the first level of which includes analog systems (CSS and SPCED) normalizing and transmitting detector signals to the systems of the second level based on computers and realizing computer data processing, data representation to the operator, automatic (through CSS) control for energy distribution, diagnostics of equipment condition and local safety with provision for existing reserves with respect to crisis and thermal loading of fuel assemblies. The third level includes a power computer carrying out complex physical and optimization calculations and providing interconnections with the external computer of power system. A typical feature of the complex is the provision of local automatic safety of the reactor from erroneous withdrawal of any control rod. The complex is designed for complete automatization of energy distribution control in reactor in steady and transient operation conditions

Vibration control and monitoring in nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Theodor, P.

1989-01-01

Nuclear Power Plants are operated with a computer system support. The computer system for a nuclear power plant is designed to reliably monitor plant parameters and perform a series of operations and calculations designed to allow increased plant operation efficiency. Rotating machinery surveillance methods for the recognition of damage are particularly important in Nuclear Power Plants. Deviation of the vibration behavior from normal conditions is an indicator of the development of incipient faults and can be reliably recognized by the use of vibration monitoring systems. Machinery Condition Monitoring is defined as a method or methods of surveillance designed to recognize changes from a norm and is also a warning or it initiates an automatic shutdown when the changes exceed limiting values or safety limits. This paper reports that it is important to distinguish between surveillance and diagnostics. Whereas the former is necessary for protection, the latter is not generally required until it becomes necessary to identify the source of a known anomaly

Mobile radiological monitoring around Nuclear Power Plant site at Tarapur

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Patil, S.S.; Saindane, S.S.; Sharma, R.; Suri, M.M.K.; Pradeepkumar, K.S.; Sharma, D.N.; Rao, D.D.

2008-01-01

Real time mobile radiological monitoring around nuclear facilities is required for establishing background radiation dose rate data and to detect any increase in the radiation level which is attributable to the atmospheric releases from Nuclear facilities. Mobile radiation survey using mobile monitoring systems was carried out in the Emergency Planning Zone around Tarapur Atomic Power station during plant operation, taking the wind direction also into consideration. For identifying the potential difficulties during an emergency scenario and to understand the variation of the measured values several systems/instruments were used simultaneously for mapping the dose rates. As demonstrated during this monitoring programme, 40mm x 40mm NaI(Tl) detector based Portable Mobile Gamma Spectrometry System (PMGSS) which is attached with a GPS can acquire and store large amount of gamma spectra tagged with positional coordinates and can enhance the capacity of decision makers during any accidental situation. The average of dose rates measured from various locations around Tarapur Atomic Power Station is 70 - 80 nGy.h -1 . The higher dose rate in the range of 110-125 nGy.h -1 measured at one of the location is due to higher concentration of natural radioactivity mainly by 40 K which was confirmed by the gamma spectrometric measurement. (author)

A noise reconfigurable current-reuse resistive feedback amplifier with signal-dependent power consumption for fetal ECG monitoring

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Song, Shuang; Rooijakkers, M.J.; Harpe, P.; Rabotti, C.; Mischi, M.; Van Roermund, A.H.M.; Cantatore, E.

2016-01-01

This paper presents a noise-reconfigurable resistive feedback amplifier with current-reuse technique for fetal ECG monitoring. The proposed amplifier allows for both tuning of the noise level and changing the power consumption according to the signal properties, minimizing the total power

Monitoring device for local power peaking coefficient

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mitsuhashi, Ishi

1987-01-01

Purpose: To monitor the local power peaking coefficients obtained by the method not depending on the combination of fuel types. Method: A plurality of representative values for the local power distribution determined by the nuclear constant calculation for one fuel assembly are memorized regarding each of the burn-up degree and the void coefficient on every positions and fuel types in fuel rod assemblies. While on the other hand, the representative values for the local power distribution as described above are compensated by a compensation coefficient considering the effect of adjacent segments and a control rod compensation coefficient considering the effect due to the control rod insertion relative to the just-mentioned compensation coefficient. Then, the maximum value among them is selected to determine the local power peaking coefficient at each of the times and each of the segments, which is monitored. According to this system, the calculation and the working required for the fitting work depending on the combination of fuel types are no more required at all to facilitate the maintenance as well. (Horiuchi, T.)

Management of the high-level nuclear power facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Preda, Marin

2003-05-01

This thesis approaches current issues in the management of the high power nuclear facilities and as such it appears to be important particularly for nuclear power plant operation topics. Of special interest are the failure events entailing possible catastrophic situations. The contents is structured onto ten chapters. The first chapter describes the operation regimes of the nuclear high power facilities. Highlighted here are the thesis scope and the original features of the work. The second chapter deals with operational policies developed in order to ensure the preventive maintenance of the nuclear installations. Also managing structures are described devoted to practical warranting the equipment safety function of non-classical power stations. In the third chapter cases of nuclear accidents are analyzed especially stressing the probabilistic risk and the operation regimes having in view the elimination of catastrophic events. In the fourth and fifth chapters the control of nuclear radiation emission is treated focusing the quality issue of nuclear installations required to avoid hazardous effects at level of nuclear reactor operation stage. At the same time set of operational measures is given here for preventing risks, catastrophes and chaotic situations. The chapter five presents both theoretical and practical approaches of the nuclear reactor core management concerning particularly the fuel testing, the water primary system and the quality of the involved equipment. In the sixth and seventh chapters issues of risk-quality correlations are approached as well as the structure of expert systems for monitoring the operational regimes of nuclear facilities. The efficiency of the power systems with nuclear injection is discussed and some original ideas developed in this work are evidenced in the eighth and ninth chapters. Presented are here both the operational principles and models of raising the efficiency of the interconnected nuclear stations and prices' policy

Low Power Design with High-Level Power Estimation and Power-Aware Synthesis

CERN Document Server

Ahuja, Sumit; Shukla, Sandeep Kumar

2012-01-01

Low-power ASIC/FPGA based designs are important due to the need for extended battery life, reduced form factor, and lower packaging and cooling costs for electronic devices. These products require fast turnaround time because of the increasing demand for handheld electronic devices such as cell-phones, PDAs and high performance machines for data centers. To achieve short time to market, design flows must facilitate a much shortened time-to-product requirement. High-level modeling, architectural exploration and direct synthesis of design from high level description enable this design process. This book presents novel research techniques, algorithms,methodologies and experimental results for high level power estimation and power aware high-level synthesis. Readers will learn to apply such techniques to enable design flows resulting in shorter time to market and successful low power ASIC/FPGA design. Integrates power estimation and reduction for high level synthesis, with low-power, high-level design; Shows spec...

Radiation monitoring data on the power-up test of HTTR. Results up to 20 MW operation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ashikagaya, Yoshinobu; Nakazawa, Takashi; Yoshino, Toshiaki; Yasu, Katsuji

2002-01-01

The High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) have completed the Power-up test of 9 MW (the single and parallel loaded operation) in the rated operation mode. After that the Power-up test in the rated operation mode and the high-temperature test operation mode with a thermal output of 20 MW (the single and parallel loaded operation) were performed between January 16, 2001 and June 10, 2001. This report describes the radiation monitoring data carried out during the HTTR Power-up test in the rated operation mode and the high-temperature test operation mode with a thermal output of 20 MW. The followings were concluded from these radiation monitoring data. The monitoring of radioactive gaseous effluents and the radiation protection for the works will be easy to do and the exposure dose of the workers will be kept the low level. (author)

Analysis of Trinity Power Metrics for Automated Monitoring

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Michalenko, Ashley Christine [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2016-07-28

This is a presentation from Los Alamos National Laboraotyr (LANL) about the analysis of trinity power metrics for automated monitoring. The following topics are covered: current monitoring efforts, motivation for analysis, tools used, the methodology, work performed during the summer, and future work planned.

Process control and monitoring system: Thermal Power Plant Gacko

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jeremovic, Dragan; Skoko, Maksim; Gjokanovic, Zdravko

2004-01-01

DCS Ovation system, manufactured by Westinghouse, USA, is described in this paper. Emphasize on concept of realization and basic characteristic in Thermal Power Plant Gacko is given in this paper. The most important, noticed by now, comparative effects and performances of new monitoring and control system according to classical monitoring and control system of 300 MW units Thermal Power Plant Gacko in Gacko, are given in the conclusion. (Author)

Determing and monitoring of maximum permissible power for HWRR-3

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jia Zhanli; Xiao Shigang; Jin Huajin; Lu Changshen

1987-01-01

The operating power of a reactor is an important parameter to be monitored. This report briefly describes the determining and monitoring of maximum permissiable power for HWRR-3. The calculating method is described, and the result of calculation and analysis of error are also given. On-line calculation and real time monitoring have been realized at the heavy water reactor. It provides the reactor with a real time and reliable supervision. This makes operation convenient and increases reliability

Automatic acoustic and vibration monitoring system for nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tothmatyas, Istvan; Illenyi, Andras; Kiss, Jozsef; Komaromi, Tibor; Nagy, Istvan; Olchvary, Geza

1990-01-01

A diagnostic system for nuclear power plant monitoring is described. Acoustic and vibration diagnostics can be applied to monitor various reactor components and auxiliary equipment including primary circuit machinery, leak detection, integrity of reactor vessel, loose parts monitoring. A noise diagnostic system has been developed for the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, to supervise the vibration state of primary circuit machinery. An automatic data acquisition and processing system is described for digitalizing and analysing diagnostic signals. (R.P.) 3 figs

A Two-Level Sound Classification Platform for Environmental Monitoring

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stelios A. Mitilineos

2018-01-01

Full Text Available STORM is an ongoing European research project that aims at developing an integrated platform for monitoring, protecting, and managing cultural heritage sites through technical and organizational innovation. Part of the scheduled preventive actions for the protection of cultural heritage is the development of wireless acoustic sensor networks (WASNs that will be used for assessing the impact of human-generated activities as well as for monitoring potentially hazardous environmental phenomena. Collected sound samples will be forwarded to a central server where they will be automatically classified in a hierarchical manner; anthropogenic and environmental activity will be monitored, and stakeholders will be alarmed in the case of potential malevolent behavior or natural phenomena like excess rainfall, fire, gale, high tides, and waves. Herein, we present an integrated platform that includes sound sample denoising using wavelets, feature extraction from sound samples, Gaussian mixture modeling of these features, and a powerful two-layer neural network for automatic classification. We contribute to previous work by extending the proposed classification platform to perform low-level classification too, i.e., classify sounds to further subclasses that include airplane, car, and pistol sounds for the anthropogenic sound class; bird, dog, and snake sounds for the biophysical sound class; and fire, waterfall, and gale for the geophysical sound class. Classification results exhibit outstanding classification accuracy in both high-level and low-level classification thus demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed approach.

Events as Power Source: Wireless Sustainable Corrosion Monitoring

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guodong Sun

2013-12-01

Full Text Available This study presents and implements a corrosion-monitoring wireless sensor platform, EPS (Events as Power Source, which monitors the corrosion events in reinforced concrete (RC structures, while being powered by the micro-energy released from the corrosion process. In EPS, the proposed corrosion-sensing device serves both as the signal source for identifying corrosion and as the power source for driving the sensor mote, because the corrosion process (event releases electric energy; this is a novel idea proposed by this study. For accumulating the micro-corrosion energy, we integrate EPS with a COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf energy-harvesting chip that recharges a supercapacitor. In particular, this study designs automatic energy management and adaptive transmitted power control polices to efficiently use the constrained accumulated energy. Finally, a set of preliminary experiments based on concrete pore solution are conducted to evaluate the feasibility and the efficacy of EPS.

Events as power source: wireless sustainable corrosion monitoring.

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Guodong; Qiao, Guofu; Zhao, Lin; Chen, Zhibo

2013-12-17

This study presents and implements a corrosion-monitoring wireless sensor platform, EPS (Events as Power Source), which monitors the corrosion events in reinforced concrete (RC) structures, while being powered by the micro-energy released from the corrosion process. In EPS, the proposed corrosion-sensing device serves both as the signal source for identifying corrosion and as the power source for driving the sensor mote, because the corrosion process (event) releases electric energy; this is a novel idea proposed by this study. For accumulating the micro-corrosion energy, we integrate EPS with a COTS (Commercial Off-The-Shelf) energy-harvesting chip that recharges a supercapacitor. In particular, this study designs automatic energy management and adaptive transmitted power control polices to efficiently use the constrained accumulated energy. Finally, a set of preliminary experiments based on concrete pore solution are conducted to evaluate the feasibility and the efficacy of EPS.

77 FR 30030 - Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants

Science.gov (United States)

2012-05-21

... Nuclear Power Plants AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Regulatory guide; issuance. SUMMARY... (RG) 1.160, ``Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants.'' This guide... Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants,'' which provides methods that are...

Market power mitigation, monitoring and surveillance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chandler, H.

2001-01-01

This power point presentation described the working of the Independent Market Operator (IMO) in Ontario in terms of its function and structure, competencies, operating principles, and interagency coordination in the electricity sector. An independent market surveillance panel (MSP) appointed by the IMO Board empowers the IMO to monitor, investigate and request information from market participants regarding power system operations, market and strategic development and industrial economics. The six operating principles of the MSP are efficiency, consistency, fairness, transparency, timeliness and confidentiality

Pre operational background radiation monitoring around Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project site - a decade long experience

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vijayakumar, B.; George, Thomas; Sundara Rajan, P.; Selvi, B.S.; Balamurugan, M.; Pandit, G.G.; Ravi, P.M.; Tripathi, R.M.

2014-01-01

Pre-operational environmental background radiation monitoring around nuclear power plants is very important to understand baseline values existing in the site and also to identify any hot spots of naturally occurring high background radiation areas and their sources. These baseline measurements will act as a benchmark for future comparison after the reactors go into operation. The radiation measurements are continued during the operational phase of the plant and the results are compared to see whether there is any impact of the operation of the plant on the environment. A comprehensive background radiation monitoring plan has been in vogue at site from 2004 to meet this objective. This paper describes the different monitoring strategies adopted around Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project site and throws light on the pre operational background radiation levels in the environment

Microcontroller based multi-channel ultrasonic level monitoring system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ambastha, K.P.; Chaudhari, Y.V.; Singh, Inder Jeet; Chadda, V.K.

2004-01-01

Microcontroller based Multi-channel Ultrasonic Level Monitoring System developed by Computer Division is based on echo ranging techniques to monitor level. The transmitter directs an ultrasonic burst towards the liquid, which gets reflected from the top of the liquid surface. The time taken for ultrasound to travel from the transmitter to the top of liquid surface is measured and used to calculate the liquid level. The system provides for temperature compensation for accurate measurement as the ultrasound velocity depends on the ambient temperature. It can measure liquid level up to 5 meters. A single monitor can be used to measure level in 6 tanks. PC connectivity has been provided via RS 232 and RS 485 for remote operation and data logging of level. A GUI program developed using LABVIEW package displays level on PC monitor. The program provides for pictorial as well as numerical display for level and temperature in the front panel on the PC monitor. A user can monitor level for any or all tanks from the PC. One unit is installed at CIRUS for measuring level in Acid/ Alkali tanks and one is installed at APSARA for measuring water level in the reactor pool. (author)

Application of fatigue monitoring system in PWR nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Piao Lei

2014-01-01

Fatigue failure is one form of equipment failure of nuclear power plant, influencing equipment lifetime and lifetime extension. Fatigue monitoring system can track real thermal transient at fatigue sensitive components, establish a basis for fatigue analyses based on realistic operating loads, identify unexpected operational transients, optimize the plant behavior by improved operating modes, provide supporting data for lifetime management, enhance security of plant and reduce economical loss. Fatigue monitoring system has been applied in many plants and is required to be applied in Generation-III nuclear power plant. It is necessary to develop the fatigue monitoring system with independent intellectual property rights and improve the competitiveness of domestic Generation-III nuclear power technology. (author)

Hydrosphere monitoring at nuclear power plant sites

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Belousova, A.P.; Zakharova, T.V.; Shvets, V.M.

1993-01-01

The paper deals with problems related to protection of the environment in areas occupied by nuclear power plants (NPP). NPP construction and operation result in destruction of ecological, geochemical and geological equilibria in and around NPP sites. This process requires monitoring. Recommendations of the International Agency for Atomic Energy (IAAE) suggest monitoring to commence 2-3 years prior to the start of NPP construction. The paper describes the extent of hydrosphere monitoring and guidelines along which monitoring is to be organized. The authors recommend a certain approach toward the planning observation networks and provide description of forecasting subsystem that consist of a data bank, a continuously operating model (COM) and a forecast unit

Advanced power cycler with intelligent monitoring strategy of IGBT module under test

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Choi, U. M.; Blaabjerg, F.; Iannuzzo, F.

2017-01-01

and diode, which for the wear-out condition monitoring are presented. This advanced power cycler allows to perform power cycling test cost-effectively under conditions close to real power converter applications. In addition, an intelligent monitoring strategy for the separation of package-related wear......-out failure mechanisms has been proposed. By means of the proposed method, the wear-out failure mechanisms of an IGBT module can be separated without any additional efforts during the power cycling tests. The validity and effectiveness of the proposed monitoring strategy are also verified by experiments....

An ultralow power wireless intraocular pressure monitoring system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu Demeng; Mei Niansong; Zhang Zhaofeng

2014-01-01

This paper describes an ultralow power wireless intraocular pressure (IOP) monitoring system that is dedicated to sensing and transferring intraocular pressure of glaucoma patients. Our system is comprised of a capacitive pressure sensor, an application-specific integrated circuit, which is designed on the SMIC 180 nm process, and a dipole antenna. The system is wirelessly powered and demonstrates a power consumption of 7.56 μW at 1.24 V during continuous monitoring, a significant reduction in active power dissipation compared to existing work. The input RF sensitivity is −13 dBm. A significant reduction in input RF sensitivity results from the reduction of mismatch time of the ASK modulation caused by FM0 encoding. The system exhibits an average error of ± 1.5 mmHg in measured pressure. Finally, a complete IOP system is demonstrated in the real biological environment, showing a successful reading of the pressure of an eye. (semiconductor integrated circuits)

Continuous emission monitoring systems for power plants. The state-of-the-art

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bamberger, J.A.

1988-01-01

Continuous monitoring of power plant emissions is performed to improve combustion and control equipment efficiency, and in response to various government agency requirements. This paper focuses upon recent developments in Continuous Emission Monitoring (CEM) and Systems (CEMS) for power plants. Topics presented include the perspective of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the states: Continuous Monitoring of Power Plant Emissions - An EPA Perspective; Pennsylvania's Proposed Continuous Emission Monitoring System Data Telemetry Requirements for Municipal, Hospital and Infectious Waste Incinerators; the importance of quality assurance; Continuous Emission Monitoring and Quality Assurance Requirements for New Power Plants; Highlights of Pennsylvania's Continuous Emission Monitoring System Quality Assurance Program; improved system specifications and data acquisition methods; Improved Specifications for Continuous Emission Monitoring; A Microcomputer-Based Data Acquisition System for CEMS; CEMS applications; Expanded Use of CEMS in Acid Rain Control Programs: Opinions of Users, Control Agencies and Vendors; and an innovative measurement technique to assess electrostatic precipitator performance; The Assessment of Pulverized Coal Fly Ash Collection in Electrostatic Precipitators Using an Instrumental Assessment Technique

Design of power cable grounding wire anti-theft monitoring system

Science.gov (United States)

An, Xisheng; Lu, Peng; Wei, Niansheng; Hong, Gang

2018-01-01

In order to prevent the serious consequences of the power grid failure caused by the power cable grounding wire theft, this paper presents a GPRS based power cable grounding wire anti-theft monitoring device system, which includes a camera module, a sensor module, a micro processing system module, and a data monitoring center module, a mobile terminal module. Our design utilize two kinds of methods for detecting and reporting comprehensive image, it can effectively solve the problem of power and cable grounding wire box theft problem, timely follow-up grounded cable theft events, prevent the occurrence of electric field of high voltage transmission line fault, improve the reliability of the safe operation of power grid.

Partial Discharge Monitoring in Power Transformers Using Low-Cost Piezoelectric Sensors.

Science.gov (United States)

Castro, Bruno; Clerice, Guilherme; Ramos, Caio; Andreoli, André; Baptista, Fabricio; Campos, Fernando; Ulson, José

2016-08-10

Power transformers are crucial in an electric power system. Failures in transformers can affect the quality and cause interruptions in the power supply. Partial discharges are a phenomenon that can cause failures in the transformers if not properly monitored. Typically, the monitoring requires high-cost corrective maintenance or even interruptions of the power system. Therefore, the development of online non-invasive monitoring systems to detect partial discharges in power transformers has great relevance since it can reduce significant maintenance costs. Although commercial acoustic emission sensors have been used to monitor partial discharges in power transformers, they still represent a significant cost. In order to overcome this drawback, this paper presents a study of the feasibility of low-cost piezoelectric sensors to identify partial discharges in mineral insulating oil of power transformers. The analysis of the feasibility of the proposed low-cost sensor is performed by its comparison with a commercial acoustic emission sensor commonly used to detect partial discharges. The comparison between the responses in the time and frequency domain of both sensors was carried out and the experimental results indicate that the proposed piezoelectric sensors have great potential in the detection of acoustic waves generated by partial discharges in insulation oil, contributing for the popularization of this noninvasive technique.

Partial Discharge Monitoring in Power Transformers Using Low-Cost Piezoelectric Sensors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bruno Castro

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Power transformers are crucial in an electric power system. Failures in transformers can affect the quality and cause interruptions in the power supply. Partial discharges are a phenomenon that can cause failures in the transformers if not properly monitored. Typically, the monitoring requires high-cost corrective maintenance or even interruptions of the power system. Therefore, the development of online non-invasive monitoring systems to detect partial discharges in power transformers has great relevance since it can reduce significant maintenance costs. Although commercial acoustic emission sensors have been used to monitor partial discharges in power transformers, they still represent a significant cost. In order to overcome this drawback, this paper presents a study of the feasibility of low-cost piezoelectric sensors to identify partial discharges in mineral insulating oil of power transformers. The analysis of the feasibility of the proposed low-cost sensor is performed by its comparison with a commercial acoustic emission sensor commonly used to detect partial discharges. The comparison between the responses in the time and frequency domain of both sensors was carried out and the experimental results indicate that the proposed piezoelectric sensors have great potential in the detection of acoustic waves generated by partial discharges in insulation oil, contributing for the popularization of this noninvasive technique.

Non-intrusive load monitoring based on low frequency active power measurements

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chinthaka Dinesh

2016-03-01

Full Text Available A Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM method for residential appliances based on active power signal is presented. This method works effectively with a single active power measurement taken at a low sampling rate (1 s. The proposed method utilizes the Karhunen Loéve (KL expansion to decompose windows of active power signals into subspace components in order to construct a unique set of features, referred to as signatures, from individual and aggregated active power signals. Similar signal windows were clustered in to one group prior to feature extraction. The clustering was performed using a modified mean shift algorithm. After the feature extraction, energy levels of signal windows and power levels of subspace components were utilized to reduce the number of possible appliance combinations and their energy level combinations. Then, the turned on appliance combination and the energy contribution from individual appliances were determined through the Maximum a Posteriori (MAP estimation. Finally, the proposed method was modified to adaptively accommodate the usage patterns of appliances at each residence. The proposed NILM method was validated using data from two public databases: tracebase and reference energy disaggregation data set (REDD. The presented results demonstrate the ability of the proposed method to accurately identify and disaggregate individual energy contributions of turned on appliance combinations in real households. Furthermore, the results emphasise the importance of clustering and the integration of the usage behaviour pattern in the proposed NILM method for real households.

Workshop on power plant cable condition monitoring: Proceedings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Del Valle, L.

1988-07-01

A three-day workshop on cable condition monitoring was held in San Francisco on Fegruary 16--18, 1988. The workshop was cosponsored by the Nuclear Power, Electrical Systems, and Coal Combustion Systems Divisions of the Electric Power Research Institute. The primary objective of the workshop was to identify the state-of-the-art for cable condition monitoring. Twenty-five technical papers as well as EPRI research programs were presented at the technical sessions. Four working group sessions and one general session were held on each of two days. Each group session provided a forum for participants to exchange ideas and to discuss in more depth research for cable condition monitoring, existing and innovative testing technology, and utility and NRC needs for testing. Recommendations from the working groups were summarized and presented at the end of the workshop

42 CFR 403.754 - Monitoring expenditure level.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 42 Public Health 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Monitoring expenditure level. 403.754 Section 403..., Conditions of Participation, and Payment § 403.754 Monitoring expenditure level. (a) Tracking expenditures... between the trigger level and Medicare expenditures for a FFY results in a carry forward that either...

Radiation Monitoring - A Key Element in a Nuclear Power Program

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hussein, A.S.; El-dally, T.A.

2008-01-01

For a nuclear power plant, radiation is especially of great concern to the public and the environment. Therefore, a radiation monitoring program is becoming a critical importance. This program covers all phases of the nuclear plant including preoperational, normal operation, accident and decommissioning. The fundamental objective of radiation monitoring program is to ensure that the health and safety of public inside and around the plant and to confirm the radiation doses are below the dose limits for workers and the public. This paper summarizes the environmental radiation monitoring program for a nuclear power plant

Calibration of radiation monitors at nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boudreau, L.; Miller, A.D.; Naughton, M.D.

1994-03-01

This work was performed to provide guidance to the utilities in the primary and secondary calibration of the radiation monitoring systems (RMS) installed in nuclear power plants. These systems are installed in nuclear power plants to monitor ongoing processes, identify changing radiation fields, predict and limit personnel radiation exposures and measure and control discharge of radioactive materials to the environment. RMS are checked and calibrated on a continuing basis to ensure their precision and accuracy. This report discusses various approaches towards primary and secondary calibrations of the RMS equipment in light of accepted practices at typical power plants and recent interpretations of regulatory guidance. Detailed calibration techniques and overall system responses, trends, and practices are discussed. Industry, utility, and regulatory sources were contacted to create an overall consensus of the most reasonable approaches to optimizing the performance of this equipment

Monitoring and management of tritium from the nuclear power plant effluent

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Qiaoe; Liu, Ting; Yang, Lili; Meng, De; Song, Dahu

2018-01-01

It is important to regulate tritium nuclides from the nuclear power plant effluent, the paper briefly analyzes the main source of tritium, and the regulatory requirements associated with tritium in our country and the United States. The monitoring methods of tritium from the nuclear power plant effluent are described, and the purpose to give some advice to our national nuclear power plant about the effluent of tritium monitoring and management.

Development of self-powered wireless high temperature electrochemical sensor for in situ corrosion monitoring of coal-fired power plant.

Science.gov (United States)

Aung, Naing Naing; Crowe, Edward; Liu, Xingbo

2015-03-01

Reliable wireless high temperature electrochemical sensor technology is needed to provide in situ corrosion information for optimal predictive maintenance to ensure a high level of operational effectiveness under the harsh conditions present in coal-fired power generation systems. This research highlights the effectiveness of our novel high temperature electrochemical sensor for in situ coal ash hot corrosion monitoring in combination with the application of wireless communication and an energy harvesting thermoelectric generator (TEG). This self-powered sensor demonstrates the successful wireless transmission of both corrosion potential and corrosion current signals to a simulated control room environment. Copyright © 2014 ISA. All rights reserved.

Development of methods for monitoring and controlling power in nuclear reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mesquita, Amir Zacarias; Rezende, Hugo Cesar; Santos, Andre Augusto Campagnole dos; Silva, Vitor Vasconcelos Araujo

2012-01-01

Redundancy and diversity are two important criteria for power measurement in nuclear reactors. Other criteria such as accuracy, reliability and response speed are also of major concern. Power monitoring of nuclear reactors is normally done by means of neutronic instruments, i.e. by the measurement of neutron flux. The greater the number of channels for power measuring the greater is the reliability and safety of reactor operations. The aim of this research is to develop new methodologies for on-line monitoring of nuclear reactor power using other reliable processes. One method uses the temperature difference between an instrumented fuel element and the pool water below the reactor core. Another method consists of the steady-state energy balance of the primary and secondary reactor cooling loops. A further method is the calorimetric procedure whereby a constant reactor power is monitored as a function of the temperature-rise rate and the system heat capacity. Another methodology, which does not employ thermal methods, is based on measurement of Cherenkov radiation produced within and around the core. The first three procedures, fuel temperature, energy balance and calorimetric, were implemented in the IPR-R1 TRIGA nuclear research reactor at Belo Horizonte (Brazil) and are the focus of the work described here. Knowledge of the reactor thermal power is very important for precise neutron flux and fuel element burnup calculations. The burnup is linearly dependent on the reactor thermal power and its accuracy is important in the determination of the mass of burned 235 U, fission products, fuel element activity, decay heat power generation and radiotoxicity. The thermal balance method developed in this project is now the standard methodology used for IPR-R1 TRIGA reactor power calibration and the fuel temperature measuring is the most reliable way of on-line monitoring of the reactor power. This research project primarily aims at increasing the reliability and safety of

Vehicle power supply cable with optical jacket monitoring and arcing interference detection; Bordnetzkabel mit optischer Mantelueberwachung und Stoerlichtbogendetektion

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Viehmann, Matthias [Fachhochschule Nordhausen (Germany). Lehrstuhl fuer Industrieelektronik; Kloss, Christina [Fachhochschule Nordhausen (Germany). Forschungsschwerpunkte Polymere/Elastomere und Lichtwellenleiter; Lustermann, Birgit [Fachhochschule Nordhausen (Germany). Forschungsschwerpunkte Lichtwellenleiter und Simulation optischer Systeme

2012-10-15

In vehicles with electrical drive, vehicle power supplies are used with high-voltage level, as well as with several voltage levels. In order to minimise any hazards through arcing faults associated with this, constructive and material-technical measures are necessary. Nordhausen Technical College presents a patented, opticalelectrical combination conductor - the main constituent of an innovative vehicle power supply cable with optical jacket monitoring and arcing interference detection. (orig.)

Study on Reactor Performance of Online Power Monitoring in PUSPATI TRIGA Reactor (RTP)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zareen Khan Abdul Jalil Khan; Ridzuan Abdul Mutalib; Mohd Sabri Minhat

2014-01-01

The Reactor TRIGA PUSPATI (RTP) at Malaysia Nuclear Agency is a TRIGA Mark II type reactor and pool type cooled by natural circulation of light water. This paper describe on reactor performance of online power monitoring based on various parameter of reactor such as log power, linear power, period, Fuel and coolant temperature and reactivity parameter with using neutronic and other instrumentation system of reactor. Methodology of online power estimation and monitoring is to evaluate and analysis of reactor power which is important of reactor safety and control. Neutronic instrumentation system will use to estimate power measurement, differential of log and linear power and period during reactor operation .This study also focus on noise fluctuation from fission chamber during reactor operation .This work will present result of online power monitoring from RTP which indicated the safety parameter identification and initiate safety action on crossing the threshold set point trip. Conclude that optimization of online power monitoring will improved the reactor control and safety parameter of reactor during operation. (author)

Environment monitoring and residents health condition monitoring of nuclear power plant Bohunice region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Letkovicova, M.; Rehak, R.; Stehlikova, B.; Celko, M.; Hraska, S.; Klocok, L.; Kostial, J.; Prikazsky, V.; Vidovic, J.; Zirko, M.; Beno, T.; Mitosinka, J.

1998-01-01

The report contents final environment evaluation and selected characteristic of residents health physics of nuclear power plant Bohunice region. Evaluated data were elaborated during analytical period 1993-1997.Task solving which results are documented in this final report was going on between 1996- 1998. The report deals in individual stages with the following: Information obtaining and completing which characterize demographic situation of the area for the 1993-1997 period; Datum obtaining and completing which contain selected health physics characteristics of the area residents; Database structures for individual data archiving from monitoring and collection; Brief description of geographic information system for graphic presentation of evaluation results based on topographic base; Digital mapping structure description; Results and evaluation of radionuclide monitoring in environment performed by Environmental radiation measurements laboratory by the nuclear power plant Bohunice for the 1993-1997 period. Demographic situation evaluation and selected health physics characteristics of the area of nuclear power plant residents for the 1993-1997 period are summarized in the final part of the document. Monitoring results and their evaluation is processed in graph, table, text description and map output forms. Map outputs are processed in the geographic information system Arc View GIS 3.0a environment

Environmental radiation monitoring during visits of nuclear powered warships to Australian ports: requirements, arrangements and procedures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1988-05-01

The Commonwealth Government has determined conditions to be met when nuclear powered warships visit Australian ports. These conditions include a requirement that appropriate State/Territory and Commonwealth authorities provide a radiation monitoring program to determine whether any radioactivity has been discharged or accidently released from a nuclear powered warship in port; to determine actual or potential levels of any consequent exposure to radiation of members of the public; and to provide this information within a timescale that allows remedial action to be taken. Part 1 of this document sets out the requirements of a radiation monitoring program capable of meeting these objectives. The fundamental arrangements and procedures for implementing the requirements are presented at Part 2 and provide a basis for the development of fully detailed, port specific, radiation monitoring programs

Internal exposure monitoring of personnel of a nuclear power plant with pressurized-water reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krueger, F.W.; Poulheim, K.F.; Rueger, G.; Schreiter, W.D.

1982-01-01

In the GDR a programme for monitoring the internal radiation exposure of personnel has been established in the Bruno Leuschner Nuclear Power Plant, Greifswald, which allows one to estimate the effective dose equivalent in the way recommended by the ICRP. The measuring equipment used, and the methods of calibration and of evaluation of results are described. At present about 400 persons are monthly monitored with a thorax monitor in the nuclear power plant. If an investigation level - corresponding to an effective dose equivalent of 0.3mSv/month - is exceeded, a more exact measurement is made in the whole-body counter at the National Board for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection of the GDR. In addition, a selected group of 50 persons is measured twice yearly in the whole-body counter. The measurements show the high effectiveness of the protective measures against radionuclide intake by workers in the nuclear power plant, resulting in a contribution of less than 1% to the collective dose of the personnel. A correlation has been found between external and internal exposure indicating that, in general, there will be a higher intake only under conditions resulting also in higher external exposures. The highest individual values of internal exposure found are below 0.5mSv/month and thus within the range of the lower detection limit of dosimeter films used for monitoring the external exposure. (author)

Online condition monitoring to enable extended operation of nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Meyer, Ryan Michael; Bond, Leonard John; Ramuhalli, Pradeep

2012-01-01

Safe, secure, and economic operation of nuclear power plants will remain of strategic significance. New and improved monitoring will likely have increased significance in the post-Fukushima world. Prior to Fukushima, many activities were already underway globally to facilitate operation of nuclear power plants beyond their initial licensing periods. Decisions to shut down a nuclear power plant are mostly driven by economic considerations. Online condition monitoring is a means to improve both the safety and economics of extending the operating lifetimes of nuclear power plants, enabling adoption of proactive aging management. With regard to active components (e.g., pumps, valves, motors, etc.), significant experience in other industries has been leveraged to build the science base to support adoption of online condition-based maintenance and proactive aging management in the nuclear industry. Many of the research needs are associated with enabling proactive management of aging in passive components (e.g., pipes, vessels, cables, containment structures, etc.). This paper provides an overview of online condition monitoring for the nuclear power industry with an emphasis on passive components. Following the overview, several technology/knowledge gaps are identified, which require addressing to facilitate widespread online condition monitoring of passive components. (author)

Ultracompact on-chip photothermal power monitor based on silicon hybrid plasmonic waveguides

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wu Hao

2017-01-01

Full Text Available We propose and demonstrate an ultracompact on-chip photothermal power monitor based on a silicon hybrid plasmonic waveguide (HPWG, which consists of a metal strip, a silicon core, and a silicon oxide (SiO2 insulator layer between them. When light injected to an HPWG is absorbed by the metal strip, the temperature increases and the resistance of the metal strip changes accordingly due to the photothermal and thermal resistance effects of the metal. Therefore, the optical power variation can be monitored by measuring the resistance of the metal strip on the HPWG. To obtain the electrical signal for the resistance measurement conveniently, a Wheatstone bridge circuit is monolithically integrated with the HPWG on the same chip. As the HPWG has nanoscale light confinement, the present power monitor is as short as ~3 μm, which is the smallest photothermal power monitor reported until now. The compactness helps to improve the thermal efficiency and the response speed. For the present power monitor fabricated with simple fabrication processes, the measured responsivity is as high as about 17.7 mV/mW at a bias voltage of 2 V and the power dynamic range is as large as 35 dB.

Monitoring of nuclear power stations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ull, E.; Labudda, H.J.

1987-01-01

The purpose of the invention is to create a process for undelayed automated detection and monitoring of accidents in the operation of nuclear power stations. According to the invention, this problem is solved by the relevant local measurements, such as radiation dose, components and type of radiation and additional relevant meteorological parameters being collected by means of wellknown data collection platforms, these being transmitted via transmission channels by means of satellites to suitable worldwide situated receiving stations on the ground, being processed there and being evaluated to recognise accidents. The local data collection platforms are used in the immediate vicinity of the nuclear power station. The use of aircraft, ships and balloons as data collection systems is also intended. (HWJ)

Diagnostic and monitoring systems in nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wehling, H.J.; Jax, P.; Streicher, V.

1987-01-01

Monitoring systems are important for the availability of nuclear power plants. A survey is given about such systems designed and constructed by the Kraftwerk Union AG Erlangen (Federal Republic of Germany) in order to assure the mechanical integrity of reactor cooling systems. Three monitoring systems based on microprocessors are presented: KUES (acoustic detection of loose parts), SUES (vibration), and FAMOS (fatigue)

Diagnosis of faults in EDF power plants: From monitoring to diagnosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Joussellin, A.; Chevalier, R.

1994-01-01

Electricite de France is constantly in search of means to improve safety and availability in its nuclear power plants. To this end, EDF has designed new monitoring systems for the major components of its units: for turbogenerator and inlet valves monitoring, for reactor coolant pumps monitoring, for internal structures monitoring and for loose parts detection. New techniques for signal acquisition and processing for diagnosis are used and all these monitoring systems are designed with the same general concept on monitoring. Simultaneously, a workstation for monitoring and aid in diagnosis (PSAD) is under development. It will integrate every monitoring system and will constitute an indispensable tool for plant personnel, enabling them to diagnose the condition of plant equipment, and providing them with high efficiency and user-friendly tools. The PSAD will have a flexible architecture, guaranteeing optimum distribution of computing power to make it available where it is needed

Threshold self-powered gamma detector for use as a nuclear reactor power monitor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

LeVert, F.E.

1977-01-01

A study of a threshold self-powered gamma detector for use as a nuclear reactor power monitor was conducted. Measurements were performed to ascertain whether certain detector material arrangements could be used to obtain significant discrimination against low energy gammas. Results indicating agreement between detector response and reactor power output are presented. Evidence of rejection of low energy gammas by the detector is presented. The simplicity of construction and ruggedness of the detector are also discussed

PC and monitor night status: Power management enabling and manual turn-off

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nordman, Bruce; Meier, Alan; Piette, Mary Ann

1998-01-01

While office equipment accounts for about 7 percent of commercial building energy use, this reflects considerable energy savings from the use of automatic power management. Most of these savings were gained through the use of low-power modes that meet the criteria of the U.S. EPA's Energy Star program. Despite this success, there are large amounts of additional savings that could be gained if all equipment capable of power management use were enabled and functioning. A considerable portion of equipment is not enabled for power management at all, enabled only partially, or is enabled but prevented from functioning. Additional savings could be gained if more equipment were turned off at night manually. We compiled results from 17 studies from the office equipment literature addressing PCs and monitors. Some factors important for annual energy use, such as power levels, have been documented elsewhere and are not covered. We review methods for estimating office equipment use patterns and energy use, and present findings on night status-power management and manual turn-off rates. In early studies, PC power management was often found to function in 25 percent or less of the Energy Star compliant units (10 percent of all PCs). However, recent assessments have found higher rates, and we estimate that for Energy Star models, 35 percent of PC CPUs and 65 percent of PC monitors are enabled for power management. While the data lack statistical rigor, they can be used to estimate the magnitude of current and potential power management savings, which we did for major types of office equipment. The data also make clear that the topic of enabling rates, and the factors which influence them, deserve greater scrutiny

Concerning results of environmental monitoring around the reprocessing facilities of Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1989-01-01

The Central Evaluation Expert Group for Environmental radiation Monitoring has been engaged in examinations of plants for and results of the environmental radiation monitoring performed by Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation around its reprocessing facilities. The present report outlines an examination of the results of monitoring carried out in 1987 (January to December). It is concluded that the methods used for the monitoring and its technical level are satisfactory in meeting the objectives of the monitoring plans. Expept for tritium in seawater, the level of radiations stays within the normal variation determined based on preliminary measurements of the background radiation. The procedure used for the calculation of exposure dose is also satisfactory in meeting the requirements specified in the monitoring plants. It is confirmed that the exposure dose of the residents around the facilities is well below the permissible exposure dose limite specified in law. (Nogami. K.)

1. Biologic monitoring at Barsebaeck nuclear power plant 1985-1997. 2. Biological monitoring at Swedish nuclear power plants in 1998. Annual report 1998

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Andersson, Jan; Mo, K.; Thoernqvist, S.

1999-06-01

This report gives an account for two studies on the ecological effects of effluents to the aquatic environment from the Swedish nuclear power plants: 1. The results of biological monitoring at the Barsebaeck nuclear power plant during the period 1985-1997 are summarised. Comparisons are made with a previous report from 1969-1983. The fish community was studied by fyke net test fishing in the cooling water effluent area along a gradient out to unaffected sites. The loss of young eels in the cooling water intake was estimated annually. Damage on female grey mullet oocyte development was analysed on samples of cooling water exposed fish. 2. The biological monitoring at the Swedish nuclear power plants during 1998 was with minor exceptions performed according to the established programmes. The monitoring at Forsmark is running in the enclosed Biotest basin at the cooling water outlet and in the surrounding archipelago. Reference data are collected at Finbo, NW Aaland, and in the nearby Graesoe archipelago. In 1998 as in previous years the benthic macro fauna abundance within the Biotest basin showed strong variations. In the beginning of the year abundance and biomass were low, in the autumn though, higher than average. Oskarshamn: The monitoring is performed in the small effluent bay, Hamnefjaerden bay, in the waters surrounding the cooling water plume and in a reference area, Kvaedoe-fjaerden, 100 km north of the power plant. Perch and roach catches have been high in the Hamnefjaerden bay since the late 1980's. In 1998 catches of perch were on a higher level than in 1997, both in spring and in summer. The changes for roach were small. A moderate decrease in eel catches took place in 1997 and 1998, indicating a reduced effect of stockings in the late 1980's. Ringhals: The monitoring is performed in the area close to the cooling water outlet, which is located at an open coast, and in a reference area. An attraction of yellow eel to the effluent area has been

Monitoring for materials fatigue in nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bartonicek, J.; Hienstorfer, W.

1991-01-01

The pressurizer surge line in unit 1 of the GKN nuclear power station belongs to the safety-relevant systems that have been monitored since the year 1987. The results of this in-service monitoring period show this component part experiences temperature fluctuations that have not been specified in the design documents of GKN 1. The in-service monitoring revealed both local and global temperature changes in the entire surge line, so that the resulting real stresses affecting the surge line can be derived and incorporated in a realistic fatigue analysis. (orig.) [de

Diagnosis of faults in EDF power plants: from monitoring to diagnosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Joussellin, A.

1994-06-01

Electricite de France is constantly is search of means to improve safety and availability in its nuclear power plants. To this end, EDF has designed new monitoring systems for the major components of its units: for turbogenerator and inlet valves monitoring, for reactor coolant pumps monitoring, for internal structures monitoring and for loose parts detection. New techniques for signal acquisition and processing for diagnosis are used and all these monitoring systems are designed with the same general concept on monitoring. Simultaneously, a workstation for monitoring and aid in diagnosis (PSAD) is under development. It will integrate every monitoring system and will constitute an indispensable tool for plant personnel, enabling them to diagnose the condition of plant equipment, and providing them with high efficiency and user-friendly tools. The PSAD will have a flexible architecture, guaranteeing optimum distribution of computing power to make it available where it is needed. (author). 5 figs., 4 refs

Coarse-Grained Online Monitoring of BTI Aging by Reusing Power-Gating Infrastructure

OpenAIRE

Tenentes, V.; Rossi, D.; Sheng Yang,; Khursheed, S.; Al-Hashimi, B.M.; Gunn, S.R.

2017-01-01

In this paper, we present a novel coarse-grained technique for monitoring online the Bias Temperature Instability (BTI) aging of circuits by exploiting their power gating infrastructure. The proposed technique relies on monitoring the discharge time of the virtual-power-network during stand-by operations, the value of which depends on the threshold voltage of the CMOS devices in the power-gated design (PGD). It does not require any distributed sensors, because the virtual-power network is alr...

The Relationship with Self Esteem Between Self Monitoring Levels of Sub Elite In - Door Soccer Players

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mehmet Behzat T U R A N

2015-07-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship with self - esteem between self monitoring levels of sub - elite in - door soccer players. For this aim, 86 male and 91 female athletes at the ages of 18 – 28 years were participated in this study voluntarily. The participants were studying at 7 different universities that join ed the in - door soccer championship of Turkish University Sport Federati on. The Socio - demographic data form, Self - monitoring Scale , and Coopersmith Self - Esteem Inventory were performed by the participants. The d ata was analyzed by using IBM SPSS (version 20.0. The Spearman Correlation parameter calculated in order to comment the relationship with data, Multiple regret ion analysis were performed for the predictive power of self - esteem for self monitoring levels of the participants. According to the analysis, a negative relationship was found among self - esteem, self - monitoring total score , and extraversion levels . A nd it was found that self - esteem levels predictived self monitoring levels substantially. It was found that the s elf - monitoring and extraversion affected self - esteem negatively, it was thought that highly self - esteem ed athletes have a tendency to see themselves as superior than the other athletes, ignore the extraneous criticism. No matter what self - esteem levels is that extraversion and acting altitute (attitude ? has not change. Consequently, self - esteem has revers e relationship with self - monitoring properties since trainers and teachers both is raised self - esteem and is helped self - monitoring themselves.

Emergency protection and nuclear power station remote monitoring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nowak, K.; Wolf, H.

1986-01-01

The States of the Federal Republic of Germany are planning emergency protection measures for the environment of nuclear power stations based on their statutory duty of care. In this connection the paper explains to what extent remote monitoring of nuclear power stations practised by the Federal Supervisory Authorities may support the design and implementation of emergency protection measures. (orig.) [de

A Design of Wireless Sensor Networks for a Power Quality Monitoring System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sanggil Kang

2010-11-01

Full Text Available Power grids deal with the business of generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power. Recently, interest in power quality in electrical distribution systems has increased rapidly. In Korea, the communication network to deliver voltage, current, and temperature measurements gathered from pole transformers to remote monitoring centers employs cellular mobile technology. Due to high cost of the cellular mobile technology, power quality monitoring measurements are limited and data gathering intervals are large. This causes difficulties in providing the power quality monitoring service. To alleviate the problems, in this paper we present a communication infrastructure to provide low cost, reliable data delivery. The communication infrastructure consists of wired connections between substations and monitoring centers, and wireless connections between pole transformers and substations. For the wireless connection, we employ a wireless sensor network and design its corresponding data forwarding protocol to improve the quality of data delivery. For the design, we adopt a tree-based data forwarding protocol in order to customize the distribution pattern of the power quality information. We verify the performance of the proposed data forwarding protocol quantitatively using the NS-2 network simulator.

A design of wireless sensor networks for a power quality monitoring system.

Science.gov (United States)

Lim, Yujin; Kim, Hak-Man; Kang, Sanggil

2010-01-01

Power grids deal with the business of generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power. Recently, interest in power quality in electrical distribution systems has increased rapidly. In Korea, the communication network to deliver voltage, current, and temperature measurements gathered from pole transformers to remote monitoring centers employs cellular mobile technology. Due to high cost of the cellular mobile technology, power quality monitoring measurements are limited and data gathering intervals are large. This causes difficulties in providing the power quality monitoring service. To alleviate the problems, in this paper we present a communication infrastructure to provide low cost, reliable data delivery. The communication infrastructure consists of wired connections between substations and monitoring centers, and wireless connections between pole transformers and substations. For the wireless connection, we employ a wireless sensor network and design its corresponding data forwarding protocol to improve the quality of data delivery. For the design, we adopt a tree-based data forwarding protocol in order to customize the distribution pattern of the power quality information. We verify the performance of the proposed data forwarding protocol quantitatively using the NS-2 network simulator.

Monitoring device for radioactive leakage from steam system in nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ogawa, Tateo; Sato, Kohei

1988-01-01

Purpose: To improve the reliability for the monitor of radio-active leakage by accumulating small quantity of radioactivities each lower than the detectable level and increasing their dose rate. Constitution: Even if the steam system radiation monitor in the nuclear power plant is disposed for the detection of in-leak radioactivity, radioactive leakage can be monitored at high reliability by increasing the small quantity of radioactivities in the drains to a detectable sensitivity range of the monitor upon detection. In view of the above, in the present invention, radioactive material catching medium is incorporated to a radio-activity monitor spool piece for accumulating small quantity of radioactivities. Specifically as the catching medium, an ion exchange resin is used for the leakage of ionic radioactive material, while an ion exchange resin increased with the mixing ratio of a cationic resin or hollow thread membrane filter is used for crud-like radioactive material leakage. These catching media are incorporated into the spool piece, thereby enabling to catch even small quantity of radioactive leakage lower than the detectable sensitivity of the radiation monitor, if should occur, in the spool piece and enabling radioactive detection for the accumulated dose rate. (Horiuchi, T.)

NOKIA - nuclear power plant monitoring system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

The monitoring system is described developed specially for the LOVIISA-1 and -2 nuclear power plants with two WWER-440 units. The multiprocessor system of the WWER-440 contains 3 identical main computers. The in core instrumentation is based on stationary self-powered neutron detectors and on thermocouples for measuring the coolant temperature. The system has equipment for the automatic control of the insulation resistance of the self-powered detectors. It is also equipped with a wide range of standard and special programmes. The standard programmes permit the recording of analog and digital data at different frequencies depending on the pre-set requirements. These data are processed and form data files which are accessible from all programmes. The heart of the special programme is a code for the determination of the power distribution in the core of the WWER-440 reactor. The main part of the programme is the algorithm for computing measured neutron fluxes derived from the signals of the self-powered detectors and the algorithm for deriving the global distribution of the neutron flux in the core. The computed power distribution is used for the determination of instantaneous thermal loads and the distribution of burnup in the core. The production programme of the FINNATOM company for nuclear power plants is listed. (B.S.)

Low-level radioactive gas monitor for natural gas operations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Armstrong, F.E.

1969-11-01

A portable radioactivity detection system for monitoring the tritium content of natural gas under field conditions has been developed. The sensing device employed is a complex proportional counting assembly operated without the use of massive shielding previously employed with such low-level radiation detectors. The practical limit of detection for the system is a tritium content of 10 -9 microcurie per cc of natural gas. All components of the system are packaged in three waterproof cases weighing slightly less than 30 kg each. Power requirement is 500 watts of 120 volt, 60 Hz current. Operation is fully automatic with a printed record produced at predetermined time intervals

Vibration monitoring and fault diagnostics of a thermal power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hafeez, T.; Ghani, R.; Chohan, G.Y.; Amir, M.

2003-01-01

A thermal power plant was monitored from HP-turbine to the generator end. The vibration data at different plant locations was obtained with the help of a data collector/analyzer. The spectra of-all locations generate the symptoms for different problems of moderate and high vibration levels like bent shaft, misalignment in the exciter rotor and three couplings, mechanical looseness on generator and exciter sides. The possible causes of these faults are discussed on the basis of presented vibration spectra in this paper. The faults were later on rectified on the basis of this diagnostics. (author)

Sodium fast reactor power monitoring using gamma spectrometry

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Coulon, R.; Normand, S.; Barbot, L.; Domenech, T.; Kondrasovs, V.; Corre, G.; Frelin, A.M. [CEA, LIST, Laboratoire Capteurs et Architectures Electroniques, CEA - Saclay DRT/LIST/DETECS/SSTM, Batiment 516 - P.C. no 72, Gif sur Yvette, F-91191 (France); Montagu, T.; Dautremer, T.; Barat, E. [CEA, LIST, Laboratoire Processus Stochastiques et Spectres (France); Ban, G. [ENSICAEN (France)

2009-06-15

This work deals with the use of high flux gamma spectrometry to monitor the fourth generation of sodium fast reactor (SFR) power. The simulation study part of this work has shown that power monitoring in a short time response and with a good accuracy is possible. An experimental test is under preparation at the French SFR Phenix experimental reactor to validate simulation studies. First, physical calculations have been done to correlate gamma activity to the released thermal power. Gamma emitter production rate in the reactor core was calculated with technical and nuclear data as the sodium velocity, the atomic densities, Phenix neutron spectrum and incident neutron cross-sections of reactions producing gamma emitters. A thermal hydraulic transfer function was used for modeling primary sodium flow in our calculations. For the power monitoring problematic, use of a short decay period gamma emitter will allow to have a very fast response system without cumulative effect. We have determined that the best tagging agent is 20F which emits 1634 keV energy photons with a decay period of 11 s. The gamma spectrum was determined by flux point and a pulse high tally MCNP5.1.40 simulation and shown the possibility to measure the signal of this radionuclide. The experiment will be set during the reactor 'end life testing'. The Delayed Neutron Detection (DND) room has been chosen as the best available location on Phenix reactor to measure this kind of radionuclide due to a short transit time from reactor core to measurement sample. This location is optimum for global power measurement because homogenized sampling in the reactor hot pool. The main spectrometer is composed of a coaxial high purity germanium diode (HPGe) coupled with a transistor reset preamplifier. The HPGe diode signal will be processed by the Adonis digital signal processing due to high flux and fast activity measurement. Post-processing softwares will be used to limit statistical problems of the

Radiation monitoring complete change by an unprecedented nuclear power plant accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Omura, Tomomi

2011-01-01

Hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station of Tokyo Electric Power Company that was triggered by the tsunami generated from the Great East Japan Earthquake led to a series of disasters up to meltdown and melt-through. A large amount of discharge of radioactive substances to the environment due to the disasters marked a sea change in the situation of radiation monitoring in Japan to date. The Japanese Government took the following actions. (1) Establishment of government-led monitoring system through the setup of the Monitoring Coordination Council, (2) Decision on 'Comprehensive Monitoring Program' that implements unified comprehensive radiation monitoring and publishes the results, and (3) Law establishment for radiation monitoring by stipulating immediate implementation systems and implementation points as well as budgetary backup for this purpose. This paper describes the plans to monitor the environment, public facilities, aquatic environment, agricultural land, food, etc., as well as the future challenges. (O.A.)

A Low-power CMOS BFSK Transceiver for Health Monitoring Systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Sungho; Lepkowski, William; Wilk, Seth J; Thornton, Trevor J; Bakkaloglu, Bertan

2011-01-01

A CMOS low-power transceiver for implantable and external health monitoring devices operating in the MICS band is presented. The LNA core has an integrated mixer in a folded configuration to reuse the bias current, allowing high linearity with a low power supply levels. The baseband strip consists of a pseudo differential MOS-C band-pass filter achieving demodulation of 150kHz-offset BFSK signals. An all digital frequency-locked loop is used for LO generation in the RX mode and for driving a class AB power amplifier in the TX mode. The MICS transceiver is designed and fabricated in a 0.18μm 1-poly, 6-metal CMOS process. The sensitivities of -70dBm and -98dBm were achieved with NF of 40dB and 11dB at the data rate of 100kb/s while consuming only 600μW and 1.5mW at 1.2V and 1.8V, respectively. The BERs are less than 10 -3 at the input powers of -70dBm at 1.2V and -98dBm at 1.8V at the data rate of 100kb/s. Finally, the output power of the transmitter is 0dBm for a power consumption of 1.8mW.

Containment pressure monitoring method after severe accident in nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Luo Chuanjie; Zhang Shishui

2011-01-01

The containment atmosphere monitoring system in nuclear power plant was designed on the basis of design accident. But containment pressure will increase greatly in a severe accident, and pressure instrument in the containment can't satisfy the monitoring requirement. A new method to monitor the pressure change in the containment after a severe accident was considered, through which accident soften methods can be adopted. Under present technical condition, adding a pressure monitoring channel out of containment for post-severe accident is a considerable method. Daya Bay Nuclear Power Plant implemented this modification, by which the containment release time can be delayed during severe accident, and nuclear safety can be increased. After analysis, this method is safe and feasible. (authors)

Monitoring device for the reactor power distribution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Uematsu, Hitoshi; Tsuiki, Makoto

1982-01-01

Purpose: To enable accurate monitoring for the power distribution in a short time, as well as independent detection for in-core neutron flux detectors in abnormal operation due to failures or like other causes to thereby surely provide reliable substitute values. Constitution: Counted values are inputted from a reactor core present status data detector by a power distribution calculation device to calculate the in-core neutron flux density and the power distribution based on previously stored physical models. While on the other hand, counted value from the in-core neutron detectors and the neutron flux distribution and the power distribution calculated from the power distribution calculation device are inputted from a BCF calculation device to compensate the counting errors incorporated in the counted value from the in-core neutron flux detectors and the calculation errors incorporated in the power distribution calculated in the power distribution calculation device respectively and thereby calculate the power distribution in the reactor core. Further, necessary data are inputted to the power distribution calculation device by an input/output device and the results calculated in the BCF calculation device are displayed. (Aizawa, K.)

Autonomous Monitoring Aerial Robot System for Nuclear Power Plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Ji H.; Gu, Beom W; Thai, Van X.; Rim, C. T. [KAIST, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2016-05-15

In this paper, autonomous monitoring aerial robot system (AMARS), which includes omnidirectional wireless charging platform, aerial robot, landing coils and a battery management board, is proposed to guarantee automatic monitoring of NPPs. The prototype of the system is fabricated, and omnidirectional charging of the system is experimentally validated with 1 C charging state. AR(Aerial Robots)s are essential for NPP accident management because human cannot access to the accident site due to the risks of unexpected explosions, collapses, and high level of radioactive contaminants. Moreover, ARs can support operators to manage normal operation of NPPs built in harsh environment of high temperature and humidity such as UAE Barakah NPP. Because these ARs usually have very low energy capacity, however, the operation time of ARs is less than 30 minutes and should be recharged regularly by human powers, which makes it impossible to monitor NPPs by ARs automatically. In this paper, the concept of AMARS has been proposed and its performance was successfully verified with a fabricated prototype. The charging state of the on board battery in AR was measured as 0.5 C with the induced voltage of 18.6 V, which is well matched to the designed induced voltage when the AR was placed on the edge of the wireless charging platform.

Monitoring biofouling in the seawater tunnel of a coastal power station

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sasikumar, N.

1994-01-01

Water level difference (head loss) between the seawater intake and the forebay was used to determine the biofouling growth in the cooling-water tunnel of Madras atomic power station, India. During 1986-87, due to biofouling growth in the tunnel, the head loss dropped beyond the permissible limits required for operation of the power plant. The head loss showed an improvement during 1988 and 1989, after exomotive chlorination was adopted instead of shock chlorination. Fouling biomass estimated from the head loss showed a heavy biomass build-up of 535.52 ± 102 tonnes in the tunnel during 1992. The head loss showed a seasonal pattern, very similar to the settlement pattern of foulants in the coastal waters, with maximum values during summer months. On the basis of head-loss data, a suitable chlorination practice has been recommended to the power station. The experience suggested that a continuous monitoring of head loss is a simple and reliable method of estimating and controlling biofouling in power-plant cooling-water tunnels. (author)

Architectural-level power estimation and experimentation

Science.gov (United States)

Ye, Wu

With the emergence of a plethora of embedded and portable applications and ever increasing integration levels, power dissipation of integrated circuits has moved to the forefront as a design constraint. Recent years have also seen a significant trend towards designs starting at the architectural (or RT) level. Those demand accurate yet fast RT level power estimation methodologies and tools. This thesis addresses issues and experiments associate with architectural level power estimation. An execution driven, cycle-accurate RT level power simulator, SimplePower, was developed using transition-sensitive energy models. It is based on the architecture of a five-stage pipelined RISC datapath for both 0.35mum and 0.8mum technology and can execute the integer subset of the instruction set of SimpleScalar . SimplePower measures the energy consumed in the datapath, memory and on-chip buses. During the development of SimplePower , a partitioning power modeling technique was proposed to model the energy consumed in complex functional units. The accuracy of this technique was validated with HSPICE simulation results for a register file and a shifter. A novel, selectively gated pipeline register optimization technique was proposed to reduce the datapath energy consumption. It uses the decoded control signals to selectively gate the data fields of the pipeline registers. Simulation results show that this technique can reduce the datapath energy consumption by 18--36% for a set of benchmarks. A low-level back-end compiler optimization, register relabeling, was applied to reduce the on-chip instruction cache data bus switch activities. Its impact was evaluated by SimplePower. Results show that it can reduce the energy consumed in the instruction data buses by 3.55--16.90%. A quantitative evaluation was conducted for the impact of six state-of-art high-level compilation techniques on both datapath and memory energy consumption. The experimental results provide a valuable insight for

A Wave Power Device with Pendulum Based on Ocean Monitoring Buoy

Science.gov (United States)

Chai, Hui; Guan, Wanchun; Wan, Xiaozheng; Li, Xuanqun; Zhao, Qiang; Liu, Shixuan

2018-01-01

The ocean monitoring buoy usually exploits solar energy for power supply. In order to improve power supply capacity, this paper proposes a wave power device according to the structure and moving character of buoy. The wave power device composes of pendulum mechanism that converts wave energy into mechanical energy and energy storage mechanism where the mechanical energy is transferred quantitatively to generator. The hydrodynamic equation for the motion of buoy system with generator devise is established based on the potential flow theory, and then the characteristics of pendulum motion and energy conversion properties are analysed. The results of this research show that the proposed wave power devise is able to efficiently and periodically convert wave energy into power, and increasing the stiffness of energy storage spring is benefit for enhancing the power supply capacity of the buoy. This study provides a theory reference for the development of technology on wave power generator for ocean monitoring buoy.

''PSAD'' on-line monitoring and aid to diagnosis workstation: a monitoring tool for EDF power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Morel, J.; Mazalerat, J.M.; Monnier, B.; Cordier, R.

1993-01-01

Like other electricity utilities, Electricite de France seeks to enhance the safety and availability of its nuclear power plants. To this end, for over ten years EDF has been installing on each plant unit two monitoring systems of its own design, one to monitor the primary cooling system, and the other, the turbogenerator set. Since the beginning of this project, widespread progress has been made in techniques of signal acquisition and processing, and in diagnosis using artificial intelligence methods. EDF has decided to call on these advanced techniques in developing its new-generation monitoring equipment, and to integrate them in its development of a workstation for on-line monitoring and diagnosis-support (PSAD: Poste de Surveillance et d'Aide au Diagnostic). PSAD will be a tool for on-line monitoring of the main components in nuclear power plants (initially the main coolant pumps and turbogenerator sets, and soon thereafter, monitoring of internal structures, detection of loose parts in the primary cooling system, etc.). PSAD will provide plant personnel with indispensable support in their diagnosis of the condition of plant equipment. It will integrate user-friendly, high-performance systems that also free the operator from many day-to-day tasks. PSAD will have a flexible architecture, for optimum distribution of the computing power where it is most needed, thereby improving the quality of the data. This paper presents the project objectives and describes work currently under way to implement EDF's diagnosis-support strategy for the years to come. (authors). 5 figs., 6 refs

Triboelectric Nanogenerator Enabled Body Sensor Network for Self-Powered Human Heart-Rate Monitoring.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Zhiming; Chen, Jun; Li, Xiaoshi; Zhou, Zhihao; Meng, Keyu; Wei, Wei; Yang, Jin; Wang, Zhong Lin

2017-09-26

Heart-rate monitoring plays a critical role in personal healthcare management. A low-cost, noninvasive, and user-friendly heart-rate monitoring system is highly desirable. Here, a self-powered wireless body sensor network (BSN) system is developed for heart-rate monitoring via integration of a downy-structure-based triboelectric nanogenerator (D-TENG), a power management circuit, a heart-rate sensor, a signal processing unit, and Bluetooth module for wireless data transmission. By converting the inertia energy of human walking into electric power, a maximum power of 2.28 mW with total conversion efficiency of 57.9% was delivered at low operation frequency, which is capable of immediately and sustainably driving the highly integrated BSN system. The acquired heart-rate signal by the sensor would be processed in the signal process circuit, sent to an external device via the Bluetooth module, and displayed on a personal cell phone in a real-time manner. Moreover, by combining a TENG-based generator and a TENG-based sensor, an all-TENG-based wireless BSN system was developed, realizing continuous and self-powered heart-rate monitoring. This work presents a potential method for personal heart-rate monitoring, featured as being self-powered, cost-effective, noninvasive, and user-friendly.

Sodium fast reactor power monitoring using {sup 20}F tagging agent

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Coulon, R.; Normand, S. [CEA, LIST, Laboratoire Capteurs et Architectures Electroniques, Centre de Saclay, 91191 Gif sur Yvette Cedex (France); Ban, G. [ENSICAEN, F-14050 Caen (France); Dumarcher, V.; Brau, H. P.; Barbot, L.; Domenech, T.; Kondrasovs, V.; Corre, G.; Frelin, A. M.; Montagu, T.; Dautremer, T.; Barat, E.

2009-07-01

This work deals with the use of gamma spectrometry to monitor the fourth generation sodium fast reactor (SFR) power. Simulation part has shown that power monitoring in short response time and with high accuracy is possible measuring delayed gamma emitters produced in the liquid sodium. An experimental test is under preparation at French SFR Phenix experimental reactor to validate simulation studies. Physical calculations have been done to correlate gamma activity to the released thermal power. Gamma emitter production rate in the reactor core was calculated with technical and nuclear data as sodium velocity, atomic densities, neutron spectra and incident neutron cross-sections of fission reactions, and also sodium activation reactions producing gamma emitters. Then, a thermal hydraulic transfer function was used for taking into account primary sodium flow in our calculations. Gamma spectra were then determined by Monte-Carlo simulations. The experiment will be set during the reactor 'ultimate testing'. The Delayed Neutron Detection (DND) system cell has been chosen as the best available primary sodium sample for gamma power monitoring on Phenix reactor due to short sodium transit time from reactor core to measurement sample and homogenized sampling in the reactor hot pool. The main gamma spectrometer is composed of a coaxial high purity germanium diode (HPGe) coupled with a transistor reset preamplifier. The signal is then processed by a digital signal processing system (called Adonis) which always gives optimum answer even for high count rate and various time activity measurements. For power monitoring problematic, use of a short decay period gamma emitter as the {sup 20}F will allow to obtain a very fast response system without cumulative and flow distortion effects. These works introduce advantages and performances of this new power monitoring system for future SFR. (authors)

Modern handling and monitoring concepts for nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hofmann, H.; Lochner, K.H.

1989-01-01

Advanced microprocessor technology offers new means and methods also to power plant operation to improve the man-machine interface by using VDU's for process control, thus enhancing plant safety and reliability. A future control-room concept involving operation and monitoring to be effected by means of VDU's exclusively, calls for a detailed knowledge of the requirements which are made by the process and the operator on the system, and for the application of a very powerful microprocessor technology. Visualization of operating and monitoring processes matched to the needs of operators should be possible at high functionality and display quality without substantial restrictions caused by the device technology used. (orig.) [de

Monitoring device for the power distribution within a nuclear reactor core

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tanzawa, Tomio; Kumanomido, Hironori; Toyoshi, Isamu.

1986-01-01

Purpose: To provide a monitoring device for the power distribution in the reactor core that calculates the power distribution based on the measurement by instruments disposed within the reactor core of BWR type reactors. Constitution: The power distribution monitoring device in a reactor core comprises a signal correcting device, a signal normalizing device and a power distribution calculating device, in which the power distribution calculating device is constituted with an average power calculating device for four fuel assemblies and an average power calculating device for fuel assemblies. Gamma-ray signals corrected by the signal correcting device and signals from neutron detectors are inputted to the signal normalizing device, both of which are calibrated to determine the axial gamma-ray signal distribution in the central water gap region with the four fuel assemblies being as the unit. The average power from the four fuel assemblies are inputted to the fuel assembly average power calculating device to allocate to each of the fuel assembly average power thereby attaining the purpose. Further, thermal restriction values are calculated thereby enabling to secure the fuel integrity. (Kamimura, M.)

Monitoring of occupational exposure at nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1997-01-01

The regulations concerning the monitoring of radiation doses of nuclear power plant workers and the reporting of radiation doses to the Finnish Centre for Radiation and Nuclear Safety (STUK) are specified in the guide. (10 refs.)

Real Time In-circuit Condition Monitoring of MOSFET in Power Converters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shakeb A. Khan

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract:This paper presents simple and low-cost, real time in-circuit condition monitoring of MOSFET in power electronic converters. Design metrics requirements like low cost, small size, high power factor, low percentage of total harmonic distortion etc. requires the power electronic systems to operate at high frequencies and at high power density. Failures of power converters are attributed largely by aging of power MOSFETs at high switching frequencies. Therefore, real time in-circuit prognostic of MOSFET needs to be done before their selection for power system design. Accelerated aging tests are performed in different circuits to determine the wear out failure of critical components based on their parametric degradation. In this paper, the simple and low-cost test beds are designed for real time in-circuit prognostics of power MOSFETs. The proposed condition monitoring scheme helps in estimating the condition of MOSFETs at their maximum rated operating condition and will aid the system designers to test their reliability and benchmark them before selecting in power converters.

Architectures of Remote Monitoring Systems for a Nuclear Power Plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Choi, Yoo Rark; Lee, Jae Cheol; Kim, Jae Hee

2006-01-01

Aina(Artificial Intelligence for Nuclear Applications) have developed remote monitoring systems since the 1990's. We have been interested in the safety of reactor vessel, steam generator, pipes, valves and pumps. We have developed several remote inspection systems and will develop some remote care systems for a nuclear power plant. There were critical problems for building remote monitoring systems for mass data processing and remote user interface techniques in the middle of the 1990's. The network capacity wasn't sufficient to transfer the monitoring data to a remote computer. Various computer operating systems require various remote user interfaces. Java provides convenient and powerful interface facilities and the network transfer speed was increased greatly in the 2000's. Java is a good solution for a remote user interface but it can't work standalone in remote monitoring applications. The restrictions of Java make it impossible to build real time based applications. We use Java and a traditional language to improve this problem. We separate the remote user interface and the monitoring application

Operation status display and monitoring system for BWR nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wakabayashi, Yasuo; Hayakawa, Hiroyasu; Kawamura, Atsuo; Kaneda, Mitsunori.

1982-01-01

Lately, the development of the system has been made for BWR plants, which monitors the operating status not only in normal operation but also in abnormal state and also for plant safety. Recently, the improvement of man-machine interface has been tried through the practical use of technique which displays data collectively on a CRT screen relating them mutually. As one of those results, the practical use of an electronic computer and color CRT display for No. 1 unit in the Fukushima No. 2 Nuclear Power Station (2F-1), Tokyo Electric Power Co., is described. Also, new centralized control panels containing such systems were used for the 1100 MWe BWR nuclear power plants now under construction, No. 3 unit of the Fukushima No. 2 Power Station and No. 1 unit of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station (2F-3 and K-1, respectively). The display and monitoring system in 2F-1 plant is the first one in which a computer and color CRTs were practically employed for a BWR plant in Japan, and already in commercial operation. The advanced operating status monitoring system, to which the result of evaluation of the above system was added, was incorporated in the new centralized control panels presently under production for 2F-3 and K-1 plants. The outline of the system, the functions of an electronic computer, plant operating status monitor, surveillance test guide, the automation of plant operation and auxiliary operation guide are reported for these advanced monitoring system. It was confirmed that these systems are useful means to improve the man-machine communication for plant operation minitoring. (Wakatsuki, Y.)

Monitoring, control and protection of interconnected power systems

CERN Document Server

Häger, Ulf; Voropai, Nikolai

2014-01-01

This book presents new tools and methods for monitoring, control and protection of large scale power systems, adapting Smart Grid technologies based on wide area data exchange in combination with modern measurement devices and advanced network controllers.

Online Vce measurement method for wear-out monitoring of high power IGBT modules

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Beczkowski, Szymon; Ghimire, Pramod; de Vega, Angel Ruiz

2013-01-01

A simple Vce online monitoring circuit is presented in this paper. It allows an accurate wear out prediction of IGBT modules, in high-power applications, during normal converter operation. Bipolar measurement allows monitoring of both IGBT and antiparallel diode. The circuit uses two serial...... offset due to diodes' forward voltage temperature dependency. Using four diodes one can monitor voltages on all power devices in a converter leg....

Radiation monitoring for the HTTR rise-to-power test (1) and (2)'

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nakazawa, Takashi; Yoshino, Toshiaki; Yasu, Katsuji; Ashikagaya, Yoshinobu; Kikuchi, Toshiki [Japan Atomic Energy Research Inst., Oarai, Ibaraki (Japan). Oarai Research Establishment

2001-02-01

The High Temperature Engineering Test Reactor (HTTR) is the first high temperature gas-cooled research reactor in Japan. This reactor is a helium-gas-cooled and graphite-moderated reactor with a thermal output of 30 MW. The rated operation temperature of the outlet coolant is 850degC. (During high temperature test operation, this reaches 950degC). The first criticality of the HTTR was attained in November 1998. The single loaded, parallel loaded operation with a thermal output of 9 MW (called the HTTR Rise-to-Power Test (1)) was completed between September 16, 1999 and July 8, 2000. The single loaded, parallel loaded continuous operation with a thermal output of 20 MW (called the HTTR Rise-to-Power Test (2)) has also been carried out, but it was shutdown at the halfway stage by a single from the reactor, when the thermal output was 16.5 MW and the reactor outlet coolant temperature was 500degC. This report describes the radiation monitoring carried out during the HTTR Rise-to-Power Tests (1) and (2)'. The data measured by the various radiation monitors is also reported. These data will be used for the estimation of radiation levels (such as the radiation dose equivalent rate, the radioactive concentration in effluents, etc.) for the next HTTR Rise-to-Power Test, and for periodic inspections. (author)

Radioactivity monitoring programme of Krsko nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miklavzic, U.; Martincic, R.; Kanduc, M.; Lulic, S.; Kovac, J.; Breznik, B.

1996-01-01

As a successor to the preoperational surveillance programme, the regular offsite radioactivity monitoring programme (RMP) of the Krsko Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) was implemented in 1982, when the power plant formally commenced operating. Observations collected during the first years of its operation were later also the basis for setting up the official 'Regulatory guide on monitoring of nuclear installations', issued not earlier than in 1986. The basic criterion which governed the selection of measuring methods, sampling techniques and locations, was the extent to which the data obtained could serve for the realistic assessment of the committed dose to a member of the population, and later on to members of a representative (critical) group. To be able to differentiate the radioactivity released through the liquid and gaseous effluents of the NPP from other radiation sources (natural radioactivity, global contamination), and especially because of the varying radiotoxicity of different radionuclides, in principle monitoring in the environment, as at the source, had to provide activity data for each individual radionuclide appearing in the effluents. Therefore, as early as 1982 the programme attributed the main weight to high resolution gamma spectrometry, combined with specific radiochemical analytical methods (e.g. 90 Sr/ 89 Sr, 3 H, 14 C, alpha spectrometry of Pu isotopes) which together made feasible determination of individual specific activities of the most significant man-made and natural radionuclides. By weighting the specific activities of the radionuclides identified and measured in the media surveyed by dose factors for intake, the quantity 'B' - the so-called 'radiological burden', was calculated and introduced in the yearly-summary tables. Expressed in relative units, from which the committed dose could be readily calculated, the burden B very lucidly disclosed the relative importance of different artificial pollutants and natural radioactivity present in

Risk monitor - a tool for operational safety assessment risk monitor - user's manual

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hari Prasad, M.; Vinod, Gopika; Saraf, R.K.; Ghosh, A.K.

2006-06-01

Probabilistic Safety Assessment has become a key tool as on today to identify and understand Nuclear Power Plant vulnerabilities. As a result of the availability of these PSA studies, there is a desire to use them to enhance plant safety and to operate the nuclear stations in the most efficient manner. Risk Monitor is a PC based tool, which computes the real time safety level and assists plant personnel to manage day-to-day activities. Risk Monitor is a PC based user friendly software tool used for modification and re-analysis of a nuclear Power plant. Operation of Risk Monitor is based on PSA methods for assisting in day to day applications. Risk Monitoring programs can assess the risk profile and are used to optimize the operation of Nuclear Power Plants with respect to a minimum risk level over the operating time. This report presents the background activities of Risk Monitor, its application areas and the step by step procedure for the user.to interact with the software. This software can be used with the PSA model of any Nuclear Power Plant. (author)

Ex-vessel water-level and fission-product monitoring for LWR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

DeVolpi, A.; Markoff, D.

1988-01-01

Given that the need for direct measurement of reactor coolant inventory under operational or abnormal conditions remains unsatisfied, a high-energy gamma-ray detection system is described for ex-vessel monitoring. The system has been modeled to predict response in a PWR, and the model has been validated with a LOFT LOCA sequence. The apparatus, situated outside the pressure vessel, would give relative water level and density over the entire vessel height and distinguish differing levels in the downcomer and core. It would also have significant sensitivity after power shutdown because of high-energy gamma rays from photoneutron capture, the photoneutrons being the result of fission-product decay in the core. Fission-products released to the coolant and accumulated in the top of a PWR vessel would also be theoretically detectable

Water level monitoring device in nuclear reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miura, Kiyohide; Otake, Tomohiro.

1988-01-01

Purpose: To monitor the water level in a pressure vessel of BWR type nuclear reactors at high accuracy by improving the compensation functions. Constitution: In the conventional water level monitor in a nuclear reactor, if the pressure vessel is displaced by the change of the pressure in the reactor or the temperature of the reactor water, the relative level of the reference water head in a condensation vessel is changed to cause deviation between the actual water level and the indicated water level to reduce the monitoring accuracy. According to the invention, means for detecting the position of the reference water head and means for detection the position in the condensation vessel are disposed to the pressure vessel. Then, relative positional change between the condensation vessel and the reference water head is calculated based on detection sinals from both of the means. The water level is compensated and calculated by water level calculation means based on the relative positional change, water level signals from the level gage and the pressure signals from the pressure gage. As a result, if the pressure vessel is displaced due to the change of the temperature or pressure, it is possible to measure the reactor water level accurately thereby remakably improve the reliability for the water level control in the nuclear reactor. (Horiuchi, T.)

Electrical power distribution control methods, electrical energy demand monitoring methods, and power management devices

Science.gov (United States)

Chassin, David P [Pasco, WA; Donnelly, Matthew K [Kennewick, WA; Dagle, Jeffery E [Richland, WA

2011-12-06

Electrical power distribution control methods, electrical energy demand monitoring methods, and power management devices are described. In one aspect, an electrical power distribution control method includes providing electrical energy from an electrical power distribution system, applying the electrical energy to a load, providing a plurality of different values for a threshold at a plurality of moments in time and corresponding to an electrical characteristic of the electrical energy, and adjusting an amount of the electrical energy applied to the load responsive to an electrical characteristic of the electrical energy triggering one of the values of the threshold at the respective moment in time.

The development of gate monitor for low level radioactive waste

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fujisawa, Morio; Watanabe, Michito; Kato, Tatsuo

1994-01-01

Low-level radioactive waste (LLW) generated from nuclear power plants in Japan, have been deposited in the yard of each power plant. At present, it is stored in about 500,000 drum cans (200l each). These drum cans are carried to Mutsu-ogawara Port by special transport ships and then transferred to Rokkasho LLW transport trucks (special vehicles) for storage. The gate monitor is used to automatically measure the dose rate on the vehicles loaded with transport vessels from a remote location, to ensure the safe transportation from Mutsu-ogawara Port the Burying Center. It is a new system which has been developed for effective measurement of dose rate on a number of transport vessels in a short time. This system is the first in the world for measuring dose rate on vehicles. Such a system cannot be found in any country of the world. (author)

Nuclear power plant monitoring using real-time learning neural network

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nabeshima, Kunihiko; Tuerkcan, E.; Ciftcioglu, O.

1994-01-01

In the present research, artificial neural network (ANN) with real-time adaptive learning is developed for the plant wide monitoring of Borssele Nuclear Power Plant (NPP). Adaptive ANN learning capability is integrated to the monitoring system so that robust and sensitive on-line monitoring is achieved in real-time environment. The major advantages provided by ANN are that system modelling is formed by means of measurement information obtained from a multi-output process system, explicit modelling is not required and the modelling is not restricted to linear systems. Also ANN can respond very fast to anomalous operational conditions. The real-time ANN learning methodology with adaptive real-time monitoring capability is described below for the wide-range and plant-wide data from an operating nuclear power plant. The layered neural network with error backpropagation algorithm for learning has three layers. The network type is auto-associative, inputs and outputs are exactly the same, using 12 plant signals. (author)

A knowledge on environmental radiation monitoring about the influence from Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yoshioka, Mitsuo; Terakawa, Kazuyoshi; Kasai, Toshihiro

2012-01-01

A large amount of radioactive substances were released in the atmosphere and contaminated a large area across Japan due to the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant of Tokyo Electric Power Company triggered by Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on May 11th 2011. At Fukui University of Technology, monitoring of air radiation (gamma ray) and radiation in environmental samples in Fukui prefecture and some areas of Fukushima prefecture were conducted in order to study the influence of radiation and radioactivity on the citizens as well as the perception of this study results by the citizens. Also, in order to study the dependency of the radiation influence on the distance from the accident location, radiation monitoring of fallouts (air-borne dust, rainwater, sediment mud, and so on) was conducted. In this article, the knowledge obtained on environmental radiation monitoring was summarized and reported. Especially, slightly modified dose-level evaluation for internal exposure was reported. (S.K.)

Water level measurement system in reactor pressure vessel of BWR and hydrogen concentration monitoring system for severe accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kuroda, Hidehiko; Okazaki, Koki; Shiraishi, Fujio; Kenjyo, Hiroaki; Isoda, Koichiro

2013-01-01

TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Accident caused severe accident to lose functions of many instrumentation systems. As a result, many important plant parameters couldn't be monitored. In order to monitor plant parameters in the case of severe accident, new instrumentation systems available in the severe conditions are being developed. Water level in reactor pressure vessel and hydrogen concentration in primary containment vessel are one of the most important parameters. Performance test results about water level measurement sensor and hydrogen sensor in severe environmental conditions are described. (author)

Deep convolutional neural network processing of aerial stereo imagery to monitor vulnerable zones near power lines

Science.gov (United States)

Qayyum, Abdul; Saad, Naufal M.; Kamel, Nidal; Malik, Aamir Saeed

2018-01-01

The monitoring of vegetation near high-voltage transmission power lines and poles is tedious. Blackouts present a huge challenge to power distribution companies and often occur due to tree growth in hilly and rural areas. There are numerous methods of monitoring hazardous overgrowth that are expensive and time-consuming. Accurate estimation of tree and vegetation heights near power poles can prevent the disruption of power transmission in vulnerable zones. This paper presents a cost-effective approach based on a convolutional neural network (CNN) algorithm to compute the height (depth maps) of objects proximal to power poles and transmission lines. The proposed CNN extracts and classifies features by employing convolutional pooling inputs to fully connected data layers that capture prominent features from stereo image patches. Unmanned aerial vehicle or satellite stereo image datasets can thus provide a feasible and cost-effective approach that identifies threat levels based on height and distance estimations of hazardous vegetation and other objects. Results were compared with extant disparity map estimation techniques, such as graph cut, dynamic programming, belief propagation, and area-based methods. The proposed method achieved an accuracy rate of 90%.

Market power monitoring and mitigation in the US wholesale power markets

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Helman, Udi [Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20426 (United States)

2006-05-15

Under current statutory requirements, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) must ensure that prices in US wholesale power markets are 'just and reasonable'. This has been interpreted by the agency and the courts as requiring the monitoring and mitigation of undue market power. This paper focuses on generation market power. Prior to electricity sector restructuring, wholesale bilateral power trading took place among vertically integrated monopoly utilities trading at the margin or between small independent producers and the utilities. Under those conditions, the authorization of trading at market prices, called 'market-based rates', required only that the generation supplier pass a simple market share screen for market power. As restructuring unfolded, and market conditions changed, there has been a steady evolution in FERC's market power mitigation rules, encompassing (a) changes in the market power assessment required for granting market-based rates and related methods for merger approval, and (b) development and refinement of new techniques for screening and mitigating offers into the organized day-ahead and real-time markets operated by Independent System Operators (ISOs) and Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs). This paper reviews these changes to date, as FERC continues to clarify its approved rules and procedures. It also examines recent methods for quantitative market power analysis that could augment current procedures or supplant them, as found appropriate. (author)

Monitored Natural Attenuation as a Remediation Strategy for Nuclear Power Plant Applications

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, K.; Bushart, S.

2009-12-01

A NRC Information Notice (IN 2006-13) was produced to inform holders of nuclear operating licenses “of the occurrence of radioactive contamination of ground water at multiple facilities due to undetected leakage from facility structures, systems, or components (SSCs) that contain or transport radioactive fluids” so that they could consider actions, as appropriate, to avoid similar problems. To reinforce their commitment to environmental stewardship the nuclear energy industry has committed to improving management of situations that have the potential to lead to the inadvertent release of radioactive fluids. This Industry Groundwater Protection Initiative, finalized in June 2007 as [NEI 07-07], calls for implementation and improvement of on-site groundwater monitoring programs and enhanced communications with stakeholders and regulators about situations related to inadvertent releases. EPRI developed its Groundwater Protection Program to provide the nuclear energy industry with the technical support needed to implement the Industry Groundwater Initiative. An objective of the EPRI Groundwater Protection Program is to provide the nuclear industry with technically sound guidance for implementing and enhancing on-site groundwater monitoring programs. EPRI, in collaboration with the EPRI Groundwater Protection Committee of utility members, developed the EPRI Groundwater Protection Guidelines for Nuclear Power Plants (EPRI Report 1015118, November 2007), which provides site-specific guidance for implementing a technically sound groundwater monitoring program. The guidance applies a graded approach for nuclear plants to tailor a technically effective and cost efficient groundwater monitoring program to the site’s hydrogeology and risk for groundwater contamination. As part of the Groundwater Protection Program, EPRI is also investigating innovative remediation technologies for addressing low-level radioactive contamination in soils and groundwater at nuclear power

Level monitoring system with pulsating sensor—Application to online level monitoring of dashpots in a fast breeder reactor

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Malathi, N.; Sahoo, P., E-mail: sahoop@igcar.gov.in; Ananthanarayanan, R.; Murali, N. [Real Time Systems Division, Electronics, Instrumentation and Radiological Safety Group, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam 603102 (India)

2015-02-15

An innovative continuous type liquid level monitoring system constructed by using a new class of sensor, viz., pulsating sensor, is presented. This device is of industrial grade and it is exclusively used for level monitoring of any non conducting liquid. This instrument of unique design is suitable for high resolution online monitoring of oil level in dashpots of a sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor. The sensing probe is of capacitance type robust probe consisting of a number of rectangular mirror polished stainless steel (SS-304) plates separated with uniform gaps. The performance of this novel instrument has been thoroughly investigated. The precision, sensitivity, response time, and the lowest detection limit in measurement using this device are <0.01 mm, ∼100 Hz/mm, ∼1 s, and ∼0.03 mm, respectively. The influence of temperature on liquid level is studied and the temperature compensation is provided in the instrument. The instrument qualified all recommended tests, such as environmental, electromagnetic interference and electromagnetic compatibility, and seismic tests prior to its deployment in nuclear reactor. With the evolution of this level measurement approach, it is possible to provide dashpot oil level sensors in fast breeder reactor for the first time for continuous measurement of oil level in dashpots of Control and Safety Rod Drive Mechanism during reactor operation.

Development of full power risk monitoring system for UCN 3 and 4 nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Seung Hwan; Jang, Seung Chul; Kim, Kil Yoo; Han, Sang Hoon; Jung, Won Dae

2002-03-01

This report describes full power risk monitoring system (DynaRM) of NPPs which evaluates the current plant risk and monitor the risk change caused by the configuration change due to preventive maintenance or periodic maintenance activities. In order to calculate the core damage frequency, the inoperable equipment's basic event should be submitted to a quantification engine. DynaRM uses a risk monitor model converted from PSA model as the quantification engine, which can respond fast for the various equipment configuration changes. DynaRM is developed to solve these kinds of problems and difficulties. The main two key features of DynaRM are real time risk monitoring and real time maintenance plan decision supporting. With DynaRM, the plant risk can be calculated automatically only with out of service equipment information and equipment maintenance scheduling is easy by modifying the detail schedule plan. We have developed the DynaRM for the Korean standard nuclear power plant and it is currently using at Ulchin 3,4 NPP. The adaptation for the other NPPs is also easy with a little modification since DynaRM was developed by considering it to be used in the other NPPs. Moreover, we also expect DynaRM will be a good advisory tool for the plant risk monitoring and maintenance scheduling

COLLABORATIVE MULTI-LEVEL PLAN MONITORING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohamad K. ALLOUCHE

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The recent worldwide connectivity and the net-centricity of military operations (coalition-based operations are witnessing an increasing need for the monitoring of plan execution for enhanced resource management and decision making. Monitoring of ongoing operations is the process of continuous observation recording and reporting. In this process the plan becomes a resource that needs to be managed effi ciently. The centralized approach to plan monitoring soon reaches its limits when plan execution is distributed across different organizations/countries. We propose a new framework that would allow different monitoring nodes distributed across the network. An effi cient propagation mechanism that allows information exchange between the different nodes would also be needed. The main purpose of this mechanism is to present the right information, to the right person, at the right time. To cope with a rapid increase of information fl ow through the network, an effi cient alarm management mechanism allows the presentation of the information with an appropriate level of details.

Monitoring method of an atomic power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koba, Akitoshi; Goto, Seiichiro; Ohashi, Hideaki.

1975-01-01

Object: To make a monitoring vehicle, which is loaded with various detecting elements, go round along the monorail disposed so as to surround various devices to thereby early discover various abnormal conditions. Structure: The monitoring vehicle is travelled on the monorail disposed so as to surround the periphery of various devices in an atomic power plant so that detection signals from an ITV camera, temperature and radioactive rays and sound detecting elements, and the like are received through a slide contact between the wheel and transmitting and receiving line disposed in the wheel groove to transmit the signals to a central control panel. (Yoshihara, H.)

Survey of ambient electromagnetic and radio-frequency interference levels in nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kercel, S.W.; Moore, M.R.; Blakeman, E.D.; Ewing, P.D.; Wood, R.T.

1996-11-01

This document reports the results of a survey of ambient electromagnetic conditions in representative nuclear power plants. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Office of Nuclear Regulatory Research engaged the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to perform these measurements to characterize the electromagnetic interference (EMI) and radio-frequency interference (RFI) levels that can be expected in nuclear power plant environments. This survey is the first of its kind, being based on long-term unattended observations. The data presented in this report were measured at eight different nuclear units and required 14 months to collect. A representative sampling of power plant conditions (reactor type, operating mode, site location) monitored over extended observation periods (up to 5 weeks) were selected to more completely determine the characteristic electromagnetic environment for nuclear power plants. Radiated electric fields were measured over the frequency range of 5 MHz to 8 GHz. Radiated magnetic fields and conducted EMI events were measured over the frequency range of 305 Hz to 5 MHz. Highest strength observations of the electromagnetic ambient environment across all measurement conditions at each site provide frequency-dependent profiles for EMI/RFI levels in nuclear power plants

An energy-harvesting power supply for underwater bridge scour monitoring sensors

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yuli; Li, Yingjie; He, Longzhuang; Shamsi, Pourya; Zheng, Yahong R.

2018-03-01

The natural force of scouring has become one of the most critical risk endangering the endurance of bridges, thus leading to the necessity of deploying underwater monitoring sensors to actively detect potential scour holes under bridges. Due to the difficulty in re-charging batteries for underwater sensors, super capacitors with energy harvesting (EH) means are exploited to prolong the sustainability of underwater sensors. In this paper, an energy harvesting power supply based on a helical turbine is proposed to power underwater monitoring sensors. A small helical turbine is designed to convert water flow energy to electrical energy with favorable environmental robustness. A 3-inch diameter, 2.5-inch length and 3-bladed helical turbine was designed with two types of waterproof coupling with the sensor housing. Both designs were prototyped and tested under different flow conditions and we get valid voltage around 0.91 V which is enough to power monitoring sensor. The alternating current (AC) electrical energy generated by the helical turbine is then rectified and boosted to drive a DC charger for efficiently charging one super capacitor. The charging circuit was designed, prototyped and tested thoroughly with the helical turbine harvester. The results were promising, that the overall power supply can power an underwater sensor node with wireless transceivers for long-term operations

Self-powered detector probes for electron and gamma-ray beam monitoring in high-power industrial accelerators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lone, M.A.

1992-08-01

A self-powered detector (SPD) is a simple passive device that consists of a coaxial probe with a metallic outer sleeve, a mineral oxide insulating layer, and a metallic inner core. SPDs are used in nuclear reactors for monitoring neutron and gamma ray fields. Responses of various SPDs to electron and gamma ray beams from industrial accelerators were investigated with Monte Carlo simulations. By judicious choice of transmission filters, threshold SPD probes were investigated for on-line monitoring of the beam energy spectrum of the high-power IMPELA industrial electron accelerator. (Author) (14 figs, 16 refs.)

Technical diagnostics - equipment monitoring for increasing safety and availability of nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sturm, A.; Foerster, R.

1977-01-01

Utilization of technical diagnostics in equipment monitoring of nuclear power plants for ensuring nuclear safety, economic availability, and for decision making on necessary maintenance is reviewed. Technical diagnostics is subdivided into inspection and early detection of malfunctions. Moreover, combination of technical diagnostics and equipment monitoring, integration of technical diagnostics into maintenance strategy, and problems of introducing early detection of malfunctions into maintenance management of nuclear power plants are also discussed. In addition, a compilation of measuring techniques used in technical diagnostics has been made. The international state of the art of equipment monitoring in PWR nuclear power plants is illustrated by description of the sound and vibration measuring techniques. (author)

Long distance high power optical laser fiber break detection and continuity monitoring systems and methods

Science.gov (United States)

Rinzler, Charles C.; Gray, William C.; Faircloth, Brian O.; Zediker, Mark S.

2016-02-23

A monitoring and detection system for use on high power laser systems, long distance high power laser systems and tools for performing high power laser operations. In particular, the monitoring and detection systems provide break detection and continuity protection for performing high power laser operations on, and in, remote and difficult to access locations.

Design and development of Solar Powered Wireless Telemetering System (SPWTS) for Environmental Radiation Monitoring (ERM) of nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mariappan, Bhuvaneswari; Ramachandran, Shanmugalakshmi

2014-01-01

Presently, the real time environmental radiation monitoring system installed in the nuclear power plant is based on LAN. Generally data from the surveillance instrument are collected at regular intervals using a lap-top or system/units and taken to the laboratory for downloading the archival data. So a need was felt to design and develop Solar powered Wireless Telemetering System (SPWTS) for Environmental Radiation Monitoring (ERM) of Nuclear Power Plants. SPWTS is used for real-time monitoring and wireless transmission of the on-line data to the Central Control Unit (CCU) to investigate the history of monitored data. Thus, in this paper a wireless mode using Zigbee is proposed, thereby improving scalability, flexibility and continuous radiological surveillance along with data archival facility. The proposed Solar Powered Wireless Telemetering System (SPWTS) comprising of transmitter, intermediate devices and receiver units transmits the ERM data to Central Control Unit (CCU) for storage and display to RADAS unit. In order to meet the coverage distance without data loss, suitable number of repeaters/routers are configured and joined in the network. The entire wireless telemetry system is powered up by solar cells with rechargeable battery backup facility, SPWTS suitable for ERM data transmission module will replace the wired Ethernet environment by wireless mode thereby improving scalability, flexibility and continuous radiological surveillance of the gamma dose monitoring. This module also proposes solutions for wireless transmission of safety related critical data to a remote control unit. Finally, this module promotes interoperability within hierarchical framework by reducing the amount of changes that could be introduced into the existing system. (author)

A distributed monitoring system for photovoltaic arrays based on a two-level wireless sensor network

Science.gov (United States)

Su, F. P.; Chen, Z. C.; Zhou, H. F.; Wu, L. J.; Lin, P. J.; Cheng, S. Y.; Li, Y. F.

2017-11-01

In this paper, a distributed on-line monitoring system based on a two-level wireless sensor network (WSN) is proposed for real time status monitoring of photovoltaic (PV) arrays to support the fine management and maintenance of PV power plants. The system includes the sensing nodes installed on PV modules (PVM), sensing and routing nodes installed on combiner boxes of PV sub-arrays (PVA), a sink node and a data management centre (DMC) running on a host computer. The first level WSN is implemented by the low-cost wireless transceiver nRF24L01, and it is used to achieve single hop communication between the PVM nodes and their corresponding PVA nodes. The second level WSN is realized by the CC2530 based ZigBee network for multi-hop communication among PVA nodes and the sink node. The PVM nodes are used to monitor the PVM working voltage and backplane temperature, and they send the acquired data to their PVA node via the nRF24L01 based first level WSN. The PVA nodes are used to monitor the array voltage, PV string current and environment irradiance, and they send the acquired and received data to the DMC via the ZigBee based second level WSN. The DMC is designed using the MATLAB GUIDE and MySQL database. Laboratory experiment results show that the system can effectively acquire, display, store and manage the operating and environment parameters of PVA in real time.

Monitoring the Thermal Power of Nuclear Reactors with a Prototype Cubic Meter Antineutrino Detector

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bernstein, A; Bowden, N; Misner, A; Palmer, T

2007-06-27

In this paper, we estimate how quickly and how precisely a reactor's operational status and thermal power can be monitored over hour to month time scales, using the antineutrino rate as measured by a cubic meter scale detector. Our results are obtained from a detector we have deployed and operated at 25 meter standoff from a reactor core. This prototype can detect a prompt reactor shutdown within five hours, and monitor relative thermal power to 3.5% within 7 days. Monitoring of short-term power changes in this way may be useful in the context of International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Reactor Safeguards Regime, or other cooperative monitoring regimes.

Advanced in-core monitoring system for high-power reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mitin, V.I.; Alekseev, A.N.; Golovanov, M.N.; Zorin, A.V.; Kalinushkin, A.E.; Kovel, A.I.; Milto, N.V.; Musikhin, A.M.; Tikhonova, N.V.; Filatov, V.P.

2006-01-01

This paper encompasses such section as objective, conception and engineering solution for construction of advanced in-core instrumentation system for high power reactor, including WWER-1000. The ICIS main task is known to be an on-line monitoring of power distribution and functionals independently of design programs to avoid a common cause error. This paper shows in what way the recovery of power distribution has been carried out using the signals from in-core neutron detectors or temperature sensors. On the basis of both measured and processed data, the signals of preventive and emergency protection on local parameters (linear power of the maximum intensive fuel rods, departure from nucleate boiling ratio peaking factor) have been automatically generated. The paper presents a detection technology and processing methods for signals from SPNDs and TCs, ICIS composition and structure, computer hardware, system and applied software. Structure, composition and the taken decisions allow combining class IE and class B and C tasks in accordance with international standards of separation and safety category realization. Nowadays, ICIS-M is a system that is capable to ensure: monitoring, safety, information display and diagnostics function, which allow securing actual increase of quality, reliability and safety in operation of nuclear fuel and power units. Meanwhile, it reduce negative influence of human factor on thermal technical reliability in the operational process (Authors)

DIMOS: a new generation of nuclear power plant process monitoring systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vlaminck, M. de; Gilliot, B.; Remacle, J.

1993-01-01

A new generation of nuclear power plant supervision systems is described, called DIMOS (DIstributed MOnitoring System). It was installed in August 1991 at the Doel nuclear power plant and is now monitoring reactors 1 and 2. The system represents one of the largest and most advanced process monitoring systems in operation. DIMOS has successfully provided the solution to the old system's limitations such as functional deficiencies, low response time, management and coherence of the data, maintenance costs, spare parts, and system availability. The use of the software development methodologies HOOD and ADA have not only allowed a rapid integration and installation of a robust system, but will also make further developments and improvements possible with maximum flexibility. (Z.S.) 2 figs

New technologies in nuclear power plant monitoring and diagnosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Turkcan, E.; Verhoef, J.P.; Ciftcioglu, O.

1996-01-01

Several representative new technologies being introduce for monitoring and diagnosis in nuclear power plants (NPP) are presented in this paper. In Sec. 2, the Kalman filtering is briefly described and it relevance to conventional time series analysis methods are emphasized. In this respect, its NPP monitoring and fault diagnosis implementations are given and the important features are pointed out. In Sec. 3, the NN technology is briefly described and the scope is focused on the NPP monitoring and fault diagnosis implementations. In Sec. 4, the wavelet technology is briefly described and the utilization of this technology in Nuclear Technology is exemplified. In this respect, also the prospective role of this technology for real-time monitoring and fault diagnosis is revealed. (author). 33 refs, 6 figs

New technologies in nuclear power plant monitoring and diagnosis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Turkcan, E; Verhoef, J P [Netherlands Energy Research Foundation (ECN), Petten (Netherlands); Ciftcioglu, O [Istanbul Technical Univ., Istanbul (Turkey). Nuclear Power Dept.

1997-12-31

Several representative new technologies being introduce for monitoring and diagnosis in nuclear power plants (NPP) are presented in this paper. In Sec. 2, the Kalman filtering is briefly described and it relevance to conventional time series analysis methods are emphasized. In this respect, its NPP monitoring and fault diagnosis implementations are given and the important features are pointed out. In Sec. 3, the NN technology is briefly described and the scope is focused on the NPP monitoring and fault diagnosis implementations. In Sec. 4, the wavelet technology is briefly described and the utilization of this technology in Nuclear Technology is exemplified. In this respect, also the prospective role of this technology for real-time monitoring and fault diagnosis is revealed. (author). 33 refs, 6 figs.

Concept of voltage monitoring for a nuclear power plant emergency power supply system (PWR 1300 MWe)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Andrade, R.B. de

1988-01-01

Voltage monitoring concept for a Nuclear Power Plant Emergency Power Supply Systems (PWR 1300 MWe) is described based on the phylosophy adopted for Angra 2 and 3 NPP's. Some suggested setpoints are only guidance values and can be modified during plant commissioning for a better performance of the whole protection system. (author) [pt

Application of wireless sensor networks in personnel dosage monitoring system of nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen Yonghong; Zhang Dafa; Jiang Wei; Chen Dengke

2007-01-01

Aim to meet the need of personnel dosage monitoring of nuclear power plant, a monitoring system was designed which based on wireless sensor network. First, the basic concept was described; the characteristics of the wireless sensor network applied in the monitoring system of nuclear power plant were also been analyzed; the structure of the system was built too. Finally, the special technologies like the choice of communication mode, the security of communication network and orientation that used in the monitoring system were discussed. (authors)

LPGC, Levelized Steam Electric Power Generator Cost

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Coen, J.J.; Delene, J.G.

1994-01-01

1 - Description of program or function: LPGC is a set of nine microcomputer programs for estimating power generation costs for large steam-electric power plants. These programs permit rapid evaluation using various sets of economic and technical ground rules. The levelized power generation costs calculated may be used to compare the relative economics of nuclear and coal-fired plants based on life-cycle costs. Cost calculations include capital investment cost, operation and maintenance cost, fuel cycle cost, decommissioning cost, and total levelized power generation cost. These programs can be used for quick analyses of power generation costs using alternative economic parameters, such as interest rate, escalation rate, inflation rate, plant lead times, capacity factor, fuel prices, etc. The two major types of electric generating plants considered are pressurized-water reactor (PWR) and pulverized coal-fired plants. Data are also provided for the Large Scale Prototype Breeder (LSPB) type liquid metal reactor. Costs for plant having either one or two units may be obtained. 2 - Method of solution: LPGC consists of nine individual menu-driven programs controlled by a driver program, MAINPWR. The individual programs are PLANTCAP, for calculating capital investment costs; NUCLOM, for determining operation and maintenance (O and M) costs for nuclear plants; COALOM, for computing O and M costs for coal-fired plants; NFUEL, for calculating levelized fuel costs for nuclear plants; COALCOST, for determining levelized fuel costs for coal-fired plants; FCRATE, for computing the fixed charge rate on the capital investment; LEVEL, for calculating levelized power generation costs; CAPITAL, for determining capitalized cost from overnight cost; and MASSGEN, for generating, deleting, or changing fuel cycle mass balance data for use with NFUEL. LPGC has three modes of operation. In the first, each individual code can be executed independently to determine one aspect of the total

Characteristics of Hydrogen Monitoring Systems for Severe Accident Management at a Nuclear Power Plant

Science.gov (United States)

Petrosyan, V. G.; Yeghoyan, E. A.; Grigoryan, A. D.; Petrosyan, A. P.; Movsisyan, M. R.

2018-02-01

One of the main objectives of severe accident management at a nuclear power plant is to protect the integrity of the containment, for which the most serious threat is possible ignition of the generated hydrogen. There should be a monitoring system providing information support of NPP personnel, ensuring data on the current state of a containment gaseous environment and trends in its composition changes. Monitoring systems' requisite characteristics definition issues are considered by the example of a particular power unit. Major characteristics important for proper information support are discussed. Some features of progression of severe accident scenarios at considered power unit are described and a possible influence of the hydrogen concentration monitoring system performance on the information support reliability in a severe accident is analyzed. The analysis results show that the following technical characteristics of the combustible gas monitoring systems are important for the proper information support of NPP personnel in the event of a severe accident at a nuclear power plant: measured parameters, measuring ranges and errors, update rate, minimum detectable concentration of combustible gas, monitoring reference points, environmental qualification parameters of the system components. For NPP power units with WWER-440/270 (230) type reactors, which have a relatively small containment volume, the update period for measurement results is a critical characteristic of the containment combustible gas monitoring system, and the choice of monitoring reference points should be focused not so much on the definition of places of possible hydrogen pockets but rather on the definition of places of a possible combustible mixture formation. It may be necessary for the above-mentioned power units to include in the emergency operating procedures measures aimed at a timely heat removal reduction from the containment environment if there are signs of a severe accident phase

Virtual instrument for controlling and monitoring digitalized power supply in SSRF

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tang Junlong; Chen Huanguang; Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing; Xu Ruinian; Shen Tianjian; Li Deming

2006-01-01

The Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) needs extremely precise power supplies for their various magnets. A digital controller is being developed for the power converters of the SSRF power supply (PS). In the digital controller, a fully digital pulse-width modulator (PWM) directly controls the power unit insulated gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) of the PS. A program in LabVIEW language has been developed to control and monitor the digital PS via serial communication (RS232) from a PC and to modify its parameters as well. In this article, the software design of the virtual instrument for controlling and monitoring digitalized PS and its associated functions are described, and the essential elements of the program graphical main-VI and sub-VI source code are presented and explained. The communication protocol and the structure of the developed system are also included in this article. (authors)

Power distribution monitoring system in the boiling water cooled reactor core

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Leshchenko, Yu.I.; Sadulin, V.P.; Semidotskij, I.I.

1987-01-01

Consideration is being given to the system of physical power distribution monitoring, used during several years in the VK-50 tank type boiling water cooled reactor. Experiments were conducted to measure the ratios of detector prompt and activation currents, coefficients of detector relative sensitivity with respect to neutrons and effective cross sections of 103 Rh interaction with thermal and epithermal neutrons. Mobile self-powered detectors (SPD) with rhodium emitters are used as the power distribution detectors in the considered system. All detectors move simultaneously with constant rate in channels, located in fuel assembly central tubes, when conducting the measurements. It is concluded on the basis of analyzing the obtained data, that investigated system with calibrated SPD enables to monitor the absolute power distribution in fuel assemblies under conditions of boiling water cooled reactor and is independent of thermal engineering measurements conducted by in core instruments

Uncertainty Quantification Techniques for Sensor Calibration Monitoring in Nuclear Power Plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ramuhalli, Pradeep; Lin, Guang; Crawford, Susan L.; Konomi, Bledar A.; Coble, Jamie B.; Shumaker, Brent; Hashemian, Hash

2014-04-30

This report describes research towards the development of advanced algorithms for online calibration monitoring. The objective of this research is to develop the next generation of online monitoring technologies for sensor calibration interval extension and signal validation in operating and new reactors. These advances are expected to improve the safety and reliability of current and planned nuclear power systems as a result of higher accuracies and increased reliability of sensors used to monitor key parameters. The focus of this report is on documenting the outcomes of the first phase of R&D under this project, which addressed approaches to uncertainty quantification (UQ) in online monitoring that are data-driven, and can therefore adjust estimates of uncertainty as measurement conditions change. Such data-driven approaches to UQ are necessary to address changing plant conditions, for example, as nuclear power plants experience transients, or as next-generation small modular reactors (SMR) operate in load-following conditions.

Uncertainty Quantification Techniques for Sensor Calibration Monitoring in Nuclear Power Plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ramuhalli, Pradeep; Lin, Guang; Crawford, Susan L.; Konomi, Bledar A.; Braatz, Brett G.; Coble, Jamie B.; Shumaker, Brent; Hashemian, Hash

2013-09-01

This report describes the status of ongoing research towards the development of advanced algorithms for online calibration monitoring. The objective of this research is to develop the next generation of online monitoring technologies for sensor calibration interval extension and signal validation in operating and new reactors. These advances are expected to improve the safety and reliability of current and planned nuclear power systems as a result of higher accuracies and increased reliability of sensors used to monitor key parameters. The focus of this report is on documenting the outcomes of the first phase of R&D under this project, which addressed approaches to uncertainty quantification (UQ) in online monitoring that are data-driven, and can therefore adjust estimates of uncertainty as measurement conditions change. Such data-driven approaches to UQ are necessary to address changing plant conditions, for example, as nuclear power plants experience transients, or as next-generation small modular reactors (SMR) operate in load-following conditions.

A nuclear power plant status monitor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chu, B.B.; Conradi, L.L.; Weinzimmer, F.

1986-01-01

Power plant operation requires decisions that can affect both the availability of the plant and its compliance with operating guidelines. Taking equipment out of service may affect the ability of the plant to produce power at a certain power level and may also affect the status of the plant with regard to technical specifications. Keeping the plant at a high as possible production level and remaining in compliance with the limiting conditions for operation (LCOs) can dictate a variety of plant operation and maintenance actions and responses. Required actions and responses depend on the actual operational status of a nuclear plant and its attendant systems, trains, and components which is a dynamic situation. This paper discusses an Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) Research Project, RP 2508, the objective of which is to combine the key features of plant information management systems with systems reliability analysis techniques in order to assist nuclear power plant personnel to perform their functions more efficiently and effectively. An overview of the EPRI Research Project is provided along with a detailed discussion of the design and operation of the PSM portion of the project

Monitoring of emissions and immissions from nuclear power plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schroeder, H J [Rheinisch-Westfaelisches Elektrizitaetswerk A.G., Biblis (Germany, F.R.). Betriebsverwaltung

1977-02-01

The measurement of the emission and immission of radionuclides from nuclear power stations has already been established with the inception of the peaceful uses of atomic energy. Since then it has been a firm feature of the monitoring of effects of nuclear power plants on the environment. The considerations and procedures on which the measurement programs are based are described. The ecological behaviour of radionuclides is illustrated with the aid of examples.

Miniaturized Human Insertable Cardiac Monitoring System with Wireless Power Transmission Technique

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jong-Ha Lee

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Prolonged monitoring is more likely to diagnose atrial fibrillation accurately than intermittent or short-term monitoring. In this study, an implantable electrocardiograph (ECG sensor to monitor atrial fibrillation patients in real time was developed. The implantable sensor is composed of a micro controller unit, an analog-to-digital converter, a signal transmitter, an antenna, and two electrodes. The sensor detects ECG signals from the two electrodes and transmits these to an external receiver carried by the patient. Because the sensor continuously transmits signals, its battery consumption rate is extremely high; therefore, the sensor includes a wireless power transmission module that allows it to charge wirelessly from an external power source. The integrated sensor has the approximate dimensions 3 mm × 4 mm × 14 mm, which is small enough to be inserted into a patient without the need for major surgery. The signal and power transmission data sampling rate and frequency of the unit are 300 samples/s and 430 Hz, respectively. To validate the developed sensor, experiments were conducted on small animals.

Efficient species-level monitoring at the landscape scale

Science.gov (United States)

Barry R. Noon; Larissa L. Bailey; Thomas D. Sisk; Kevin S. McKelvey

2012-01-01

Monitoring the population trends of multiple animal species at a landscape scale is prohibitively expensive. However, advances in survey design, statistical methods, and the ability to estimate species presence on the basis of detection­nondetection data have greatly increased the feasibility of species-level monitoring. For example, recent advances in monitoring make...

Using modular neural networks to monitor accident conditions in nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guo, Z.

1992-01-01

Nuclear power plants are very complex systems. The diagnoses of transients or accident conditions is very difficult because a large amount of information, which is often noisy, or intermittent, or even incomplete, need to be processed in real time. To demonstrate their potential application to nuclear power plants, neural networks axe used to monitor the accident scenarios simulated by the training simulator of TVA's Watts Bar Nuclear Power Plant. A self-organization network is used to compress original data to reduce the total number of training patterns. Different accident scenarios are closely related to different key parameters which distinguish one accident scenario from another. Therefore, the accident scenarios can be monitored by a set of small size neural networks, called modular networks, each one of which monitors only one assigned accident scenario, to obtain fast training and recall. Sensitivity analysis is applied to select proper input variables for modular networks

INSTALLATION OF A POST-ACCIDENT CONFINEMENT HIGH-LEVEL RADIATION MONITORING SYSTEM IN THE KOLA NUCLEAR POWER STATION (UNIT 2) IN RUSSIA

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

GREENE,G.A.; GUPPY,J.G.

1998-09-01

This is the final report on the INSP project entitled, ``Post-Accident Confinement High-Level Radiation Monitoring System'' conducted by BNL under the authorization of Project Work Plan WBS 1.2.2.6 (Attachment 1). This project was initiated in February 1993 to assist the Russians in reducing risks associated with the continued operation of older Soviet-designed nuclear power plants, specifically the Kola VVER-440/230 Unit 2, through improved accident detection capability, specifically by the installation of a dual train high-level radiation detection system in the confinement of Unit 2 of the Kola NPP. The major technical objective of this project was to provide, install and make operational the necessary hardware inside the confinement of the Kola NPP Unit 2 to provide early and reliable warning of the release of radionuclides from the reactor into the confinement air space as an indication of the occurrence of a severe accident at the plant. In addition, it was intended to provide hands-on experience and training to the Russian plant workers in the installation, operation, calibration and maintenance of the equipment in order that they may use the equipment without continued US assistance as an effective measure to improve reactor safety at the plant.

INSTALLATION OF A POST-ACCIDENT CONFINEMENT HIGH-LEVEL RADIATION MONITORING SYSTEM IN THE KOLA NUCLEAR POWER STATION (UNIT 2) IN RUSSIA

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

GREENE, G.A.; GUPPY, J.G.

1998-01-01

This is the final report on the INSP project entitled, ''Post-Accident Confinement High-Level Radiation Monitoring System'' conducted by BNL under the authorization of Project Work Plan WBS 1.2.2.6 (Attachment 1). This project was initiated in February 1993 to assist the Russians in reducing risks associated with the continued operation of older Soviet-designed nuclear power plants, specifically the Kola VVER-440/230 Unit 2, through improved accident detection capability, specifically by the installation of a dual train high-level radiation detection system in the confinement of Unit 2 of the Kola NPP. The major technical objective of this project was to provide, install and make operational the necessary hardware inside the confinement of the Kola NPP Unit 2 to provide early and reliable warning of the release of radionuclides from the reactor into the confinement air space as an indication of the occurrence of a severe accident at the plant. In addition, it was intended to provide hands-on experience and training to the Russian plant workers in the installation, operation, calibration and maintenance of the equipment in order that they may use the equipment without continued US assistance as an effective measure to improve reactor safety at the plant

Fiber optic sensors for monitoring sodium circuits and power grid cables

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kasinathan, M.; Sosamma, S.; Pandian, C.; Vijayakumar, V.; Chandramouli, S.; Nashine, B. K.; Rao, C. B.; Murali, N.; Rajan, K. K.; Jayakumar, T. [IGCAR, Kalpakkam (India)

2011-07-01

At Kalpakkam, India, a programme on development of Raman Distributed Temperature sensor (RDTS) for Fast Breeder Reactors (FBR) application is undertaken. Leak detection in sodium circuits of FBR is critical for the safety and performance of the reactors. It is demonstrated that RDTS can be usefully employed in monitoring sodium circuits and in tracking the percolating sodium in case of any leak. Aluminum Conductor Steel Reinforced (ACSR) cable is commonly used as overhead power transmission cable in power grid. A second application demonstrates the suitability of using RDTS to monitor this transmission cable for any defect. (authors)

The cyclical monitoring system for digital power supplies at SSRF

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tang Junlong; Li Deming; Shen Tianjian

2009-01-01

Based on available digital PS testing system and long-distance monitoring hardwares, the cyclical monitoring system for digital power supplies (PS) was developed at SSRF. Two models, i.e.long-distance cyclical monitoring and local cyclical monitoring, were established. The software developed in LabVIEW language was applied to the two models without any user interface modification. The user interface is simple. The system is suitable for debugging the digital PSs during long-distance monitoring and examining the performance. The long-distance model imitates the digital PSs' status for fault analysis and communication between the digital PS and the centre control room. The local model simultaneously examines stability of 18 new PSs for 24 h, monitors the PS controller, and detects malfunction. Parameters and status of the controller can be stored in Excel or Text file. The two models have been used at SSRF for monitoring the digital PSs. (authors)

A METHOD OF COMPLEX AUTOMATED MONITORING OF UKRAINIAN POWER ENERGY SYSTEM OBJECTS TO INCREASE ITS OPERATION SAFETY

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ye.I. Sokol

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The paper describes an algorithm of the complex automated monitoring of Ukraine’s power energy system, aimed at ensuring safety of its personnel and equipment. This monitoring involves usage of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs for planned and unplanned registration status of power transmission lines (PTL and high-voltage substations (HVS. It is assumed that unscheduled overflights will be made in emergency situations on power lines. With the help of the UAV, pictures of transmission and HVS will be recorded from the air in the optical and infrared ranges, as well as strength of electric (EF and magnetic (MF fields will be measured along the route of flight. Usage specially developed software allows to compare the recorded pictures with pre-UAV etalon patterns corresponding to normal operation of investigated transmission lines and the HVSs. Such reference pattern together with the experimentally obtained maps of HVS’s protective grounding will be summarized in a single document – a passport of HVS and PTL. This passport must also contain the measured and calculated values of strength levels of EF and MF in the places where staff of power facilities stay as well as layout of equipment, the most vulnerable to the effects of electromagnetic interference. If necessary, as part of ongoing monitoring, recommendations will be given on the design and location of electromagnetic screens, reducing the levels of electromagnetic interference as well as on location of lightning rods, reducing probability lightning attachment to the objects. The paper presents analytic expressions, which formed the basis of the developed software for calculation of the EF strength in the vicinity of power lines. This software will be used as a base at UAV navigation along the transmission lines, as well as to detect violations in the transmission lines operation. Comparison of distributions of EF strength calculated with the help of the elaborated software with the known

Technology and Power. A Foucauldian Analysis of Electronic Monitoring Discourses

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anna Vitores

2007-05-01

Full Text Available The article aims to show the importance of FOUCAULT within social studies of science and technology. It also illustrates how a Foucauldian analysis can be useful for studies of science, technology and society focused on power effects. To accomplish these objectives we analyze the emergence of a specific techno-scientific innovation: the electronic monitoring of offenders. We map the discontinuities and discourse dispersions linked to those practices that constitute different materializations of this electronic device. Because we start from questions concerning power technologies, rather than simply analyzing the ideologies and knowledges that legitimate electronic monitoring and its technical reliability, we attend to the assemblage of discourses, rhetorics, vocabularies, techniques and procedures by which knowledge is intertwined and joins with the exercise of power. In this way, we show how one of FOUCAULT's technologies of power—disciplinary technology—is articulated, nourished and contradicted by other emergent logics drawing on new forms of regulation and social control. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs070225

In Vivo Self-Powered Wireless Cardiac Monitoring via Implantable Triboelectric Nanogenerator.

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Qiang; Zhang, Hao; Shi, Bojing; Xue, Xiang; Liu, Zhuo; Jin, Yiming; Ma, Ye; Zou, Yang; Wang, Xinxin; An, Zhao; Tang, Wei; Zhang, Wei; Yang, Fan; Liu, Yang; Lang, Xilong; Xu, Zhiyun; Li, Zhou; Wang, Zhong Lin

2016-07-26

Harvesting biomechanical energy in vivo is an important route in obtaining sustainable electric energy for powering implantable medical devices. Here, we demonstrate an innovative implantable triboelectric nanogenerator (iTENG) for in vivo biomechanical energy harvesting. Driven by the heartbeat of adult swine, the output voltage and the corresponding current were improved by factors of 3.5 and 25, respectively, compared with the reported in vivo output performance of biomechanical energy conversion devices. In addition, the in vivo evaluation of the iTENG was demonstrated for over 72 h of implantation, during which the iTENG generated electricity continuously in the active animal. Due to its excellent in vivo performance, a self-powered wireless transmission system was fabricated for real-time wireless cardiac monitoring. Given its outstanding in vivo output and stability, iTENG can be applied not only to power implantable medical devices but also possibly to fabricate a self-powered, wireless healthcare monitoring system.

Technical description and evaluation of BWR hybrid power shape monitoring system. Final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Frogner, B.; Ipaktchi, A.; Yang, C.; Grow, R.; Ho, C.; Kiguchi, T.

1982-03-01

This report discusses the method for monitoring BWR cores that has been implemented in the Power Shape Monitoring System (PSMS). The approach has been benchmarked to TIP data from three plants and five fuel cycles and the accuracy of the calculations has been evaluated by using gamma scan data from two plants. A coupled neutronics/thermal-hydraulic nodal code (NODE-B/THERM-B) is used in the PSMS. It has been demonstrated that adaptation of this code to partially fit the TIP readings followed by a statistical characterization of the remaining errors results in better accuracy and improved sensitivity for anomaly detection compared to an approach that is entirely dependent upon the detector readings. The computed power distribution has a one-sigma uncertainty of 6% for the nodal power and 4% for the bundle power. This is significantly better than the plant process computers that actually were used for monitoring those two plants where comparisons were made

Aquatic indicator organisms as a tool to monitor discharges from nuclear power plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Outola, Iisa; Vartti, Vesa-Pekka; Klemola, Seppo [STUK - Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority, P.O. Box 14, 00881 Helsinki (Finland)

2014-07-01

There are four operating nuclear power plant units in Finland at two separate locations. The units started operation during 1977-1980. The surveillance of radioactive substances in the vicinities of the nuclear power plant is carried out under the permanent monitoring programs. Some 1000 samples are taken annually from the surroundings of the power plants to confirm that the discharges from the power plants are within permissible release limits and to monitor the dispersion of discharges in the environment. Aquatic indicator organisms (macro-algae, periphyton, mussels, crustacean, submerged aquatic plants) are included in the monitoring program. The indicator organisms are valuable monitoring objects both in normal and emergency situations because they accumulate effectively and often very rapidly radioactive substances from the medium. Six different species (Periphyton, Fucus vesiculosus, Myriophyllum spicatum, Potamogeton pectinatus, Saduria entomon, Macoma Baltica/Mytilus edulis) are collected regularly. Number of sampling location for each species varies from 1 to 7. Some species are collected continuously, some 1-2 times in a year. In this study we have evaluated the monitoring results for the aquatic indicator organisms for the period of 2005-2010 concerning concentration of discharge nuclides. Our aim was to answer the following questions using the monitoring data from aquatic organisms: 1) Which radionuclides are released to the marine environment and how often do we detect them? 2) How far from the nuclear power plants discharge radionuclides are detected? 3) How concentration of discharge radionuclides has changed with time in aquatic organisms? The number of discharge nuclides detected in the aquatic indicator samples was 11. Most of them were only detected in few samples, but {sup 58}Co, {sup 60}Co, {sup 54}Mn and {sup 110m}Ag were detected more frequently. Most of the observations above detection limits were made within the 5 km distance from the

Challenges with Tertiary-Level Mechatronic Fluid Power

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dransfield, Peter; Conrad, Finn

1996-01-01

As authors we take the view that mechatronics, as it relates to fluid power, has three levels which we designate as primary, secondary and tertiary. A brief review of the current status of fluid power, hydraulic and pneumatic, and of electronic control of it is presented and discussed. The focus...... is then on tertiary-level mechatronic fluid power and the challenges to it being applied successfully....

A solution to the varying response of the linear power monitor induced by xenon poisoning

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Godsey, T A; Randall, J D [Texas A and M University (United States)

1974-07-01

After conversion to FLIP fuel at Texas A and M, the fuel temperatures were examined very carefully. It was observed that the fuel temperature at 1 Mw varied over a wide range during the week. This variation was shown to be due to the variation in response of the linear CIC which was used to establish reactor power level. A modification of the linear power monitor was designed and installed. The response of this system was verified by using cobalt wires, fuel temperature, and a fission chamber located at 6 feet from the reactor core. The system has proven to be operationally satisfactory. (author)

New reactor safety circuit for low-power-level operation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McDowell, W.P.; Keefe, D.J.; Rusch, G.K.

1978-01-01

In the operation of nuclear reactors at low-power levels, one of the primary instrumentation problems is that the statistical fluctuations of reactor neutron population are accentuated by conventional log-count-rate and differentiating circuits and can cause frequent spurious scrams unless long time constants are incorporated in the circuit. Excessive time constants may introduce undesirable delay in the circuit response to legitimate scram signals. The paper develops the concept of a count doubling-time monitor which generates a scram signal if the number of counts from a pulse type neutron detector doubles in a given period of time. The paper demonstrates the theoretical relation between count doubling time and asymptomatic periods. A practical circuit to implement the function is described

Power Constrained High-Level Synthesis of Battery Powered Digital Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Sune Fallgaard; Madsen, Jan

2003-01-01

We present a high-level synthesis algorithm solving the combined scheduling, allocation and binding problem minimizing area under both latency and maximum power per clock-cycle constraints. Our approach eliminates the large power spikes, resulting in an increased battery lifetime, a property...... of utmost importance for battery powered embedded systems. Our approach extends the partial-clique partitioning algorithm by introducing power awareness through a heuristic algorithm which bounds the design space to those of power feasible schedules. We have applied our algorithm on a set of dataflow graphs...

Dynamic Sleep Scheduling on Air Pollution Levels Monitoring with Wireless Sensor Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gezaq Abror

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Wireless Sensor Network (WSN can be applied for Air Pollution Level Monitoring System that have been determined by the Environmental Impact Management Agency which is  PM10, SO2, O3, NO2 and CO. In WSN, node system is constrained to a limited power supply, so that the node system has a lifetime. To doing lifetime maximization, power management scheme is required and sensor nodes should use energy efficiently. This paper proposes dynamic sleep scheduling using Time Category-Fuzzy Logic (Time-Fuzzy Scheduling as a reference for calculating time interval for sleep and activated node system to support power management scheme. This research contributed in power management design to be applied to the WSN system to reduce energy expenditure. From the test result in real hardware node system, it can be seen that Time-Fuzzy Scheduling is better in terms of using the battery and it is better in terms of energy consumption too because it is more efficient 51.85% when it is compared with Fuzzy Scheduling, it is more efficient 68.81% when it is compared with Standard Scheduling and it is more efficient 85.03% when compared with No Scheduling.

Tools for monitoring and diagnosis of power Transformers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Borsi, H.; Gockenbach, E.

1999-05-01

For an optimised maintenance as well as damage prevention and a prediction of further life expectancy the knowledge of the insulation condition of power transformers can be estimated using monitoring systems. In this paper a monitoring method based on a new system for an on-line measurement of P D and undissolved gases on transformers is presented. A modular structured system is introduced which is able to analyse the statistical characteristics of broadband measured P D-pulses by using digital signal processing. Furthermore a new developed electronic Buchholzrelay for the detection of undissolved gases will be described which allows a diagnosis of the insulation and a protection of the transformer

Real Time Monitoring and Wear Out of Power Modules

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ghimire, Pramod

the expected lifetime of converters. Real time monitoring of power modules is very important together with a smart control and a driving technique in a converter. This ensures to operate the device within a safe operating area and also to protect from a catastrophic failure. Furthermore, the inherent physical...... and in a mission-profile oriented advanced power cycling test. The measurement technique is implemented in a full scale converter under field oriented test conditions. Initially, a real time measurement technique and it's implementation in a converter are introduced. A full scale converter is also used......Power electronic devices have a wide range of applications from very low to high power at constantly varying load conditions. Irrespective of the harsh operating loads, including both internal and external, an improvement in a performance such as efficiency, power density, reliability and cost...

An analysis of the water-level monitoring system for a boiling-water reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carlson, R.W.; Belblidia, L.A.; Russell, J.L. Jr.

1985-01-01

The water-level instrumentation system is very important to the overall safety of a BWR. This system is being monitored by the Safety Parameter Display System (SPDS) that is being installed in Georgia Power Company's Plant Hatch. One of the most significant functions of the SPDS is the comparison of redundant instrument readings and formation of the best estimate of each parameter from those readings which are consistent. When comparing water-level instrument readings, it is necessary to correct the individual readings for differences between current and calibration conditions as well as for differences between calibration conditions for the multiple instruments. This paper documents the examination of the water-level instrumentation system at Plant Hatch and presents the development of the equations that were used to determine the differences between indicated and actual water levels. (author)

Thermoelectric powered wireless sensors for spent fuel monitoring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carstens, T.; Corradini, M.; Blanchard, J.; Ma, Z.

2011-01-01

This paper describes using thermoelectric generators to power wireless sensors to monitor spent nuclear fuel during dry-cask storage. OrigenArp was used to determine the decay heat of the spent fuel at different times during the service life of the dry-cask. The Engineering Equation Solver computer program modeled the temperatures inside the spent fuel storage facility during its service life. The temperature distribution in a thermoelectric generator and heat sink was calculated using the computer program Finite Element Heat Transfer. From these temperature distributions the power produced by the thermoelectric generator was determined as a function of the service life of the dry-cask. In addition, an estimation of the path loss experienced by the wireless signal can be made based on materials and thickness of the structure. Once the path loss is known, the transmission power and thermoelectric generator power requirements can be determined. This analysis estimates that a thermoelectric generator can produce enough power for a sensor to function and transmit data from inside the dry-cask throughout its service life. (authors)

Thermo-power in Brazil: diagnosis of control and monitoring of gas emissions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xavier, E.E.; Magrini, Alessandra; Rosa, L.P.; Santos, M.A. dos

2004-01-01

In parallel to Brazil's recent supply crisis, the privatization process of its power sector has drastically reshaped the nation's energy matrix. From a profile based mainly on hydro-power generation, this sector is being reshaped through a thermo-power plant construction program whose environmental repercussions will certainly be felt over the next few years. This paper offers a description of the thermo-power segment currently in operation, under construction and on the drawing board in Brazil, followed by the results of a diagnosis of the control and monitoring of the gas emissions by this segment. The methodology used for the exploratory analysis and to prepare the diagnosis consists of surveys through questionnaires completed by companies owning the thermo-power plants. After consolidating, processing and analyzing the findings reached through the replies sent in by the companies, it is concluded that thermo-power plants currently in operation lack control systems that would help reduce atmospheric pollution, and are not equipped with monitoring systems for these emissions. The thermo-power plants currently under construction and on the drawing board indicate a trend towards including these systems in their project designs, due to more stringent licensing processes

International Remote Monitoring Project Embalse Nuclear Power Station, Argentina Embalse Remote Monitoring System

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schneider, Sigfried L.; Glidewell, Donnie D.; Bonino, Anibal; Bosler, Gene; Mercer, David; Maxey, Curt; Vones, Jaromir; Martelle, Guy; Busse, James; Kadner, Steve; White, Mike; Rovere, Luis

1999-01-01

The Autoridad Regulatoria Nuclear of Argentina (ARN), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), ABACC, the US Department of Energy, and the US Support Program POTAS, cooperated in the development of a Remote Monitoring System for nuclear nonproliferation efforts. This system was installed at the Embalse Nuclear Power Station last year to evaluate the feasibility of using radiation sensors in monitoring the transfer of spent fuel from the spent fuel pond to dry storage. The key element in this process is to maintain continuity of knowledge throughout the entire transfer process. This project evaluated the fundamental design and implementation of the Remote Monitoring System in its application to regional and international safeguard efficiency. New technology has been developed to enhance the design of the system to include storage capability on board sensor platforms. This evaluation has led to design enhancements that will assure that no data loss will occur during loss of RF transmission of the sensors

Grid Monitoring and Advanced Control of Distributed Power Generation Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Timbus, Adrian Vasile

. As an example, the latest published grid codes stress the ability of distributed generators, especially wind turbines, to stay connected during short grid disturbances and in addition to provide active/reactive power control at the point of common coupling. Based on the above facts, the need for improving...... reported in some countries creating concerns about power system stability. This leads to a continuous evolution of grid interconnection requirements towards a better controllability of generated power and an enhanced contribution of distributed power generation systems to power system stability...... and adding more features to the control of distributed power generation systems (DPGS) arises. As a consequence, this thesis focuses on grid monitoring methods and possible approaches in control in order to obtain a more reliable and  exible power generation system during normal and faulty grid conditions...

High power beam profile monitor with optical transition radiation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Denard, J.C.; Piot, P.; Capek, K.; Feldl, E.

1997-01-01

A simple monitor has been built to measure the profile of the high power beam (800 kW) delivered by the CEBAF accelerator at Jefferson Lab. The monitor uses the optical part of the forward transition radiation emitted from a thin carbon foil. The small beam size to be measured, about 100 μm, is challenging not only for the power density involved but also for the resolution the instrument must achieve. An important part of the beam instrumentation community believes the radiation being emitted into a cone of characteristic angle 1/γ is originated from a region of transverse dimension roughly λγ; thus the apparent size of the source of transition radiation would become very large for highly relativistic particles. This monitor measures 100 μm beam sizes that are much smaller than the 3.2 mm λγ limit; it confirms the statement of Rule and Fiorito that optical transition radiation can be used to image small beams at high energy. The present paper describes the instrument and its performance. The authors tested the foil in, up to 180 μA of CW beam without causing noticeable beam loss, even at 800 MeV, the lowest CEBAF energy

Nuclear power plant control room operator control and monitoring tasks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bovell, C.R.; Beck, M.G.; Carter, R.J.

1998-01-01

Oak Ridge National Laboratory is conducting a research project the purpose of which is to develop the technical bases for regulatory review criteria for use in evaluating the safety implications of human factors associated with the use of artificial intelligence and expert systems, and with advanced instrumentation and control (I and C) systems in nuclear power plants (NPP). This report documents the results from Task 8 of that project. The primary objectives of the task was to identify the scope and type of control and monitoring tasks now performed by control-room operators. Another purpose was to address the types of controls and safety systems needed to operate the nuclear plant. The final objective of Task 8 was to identify and categorize the type of information and displays/indicators required to monitor the performance of the control and safety systems. This report also discusses state-of-the-art controls and advanced display devices which will be available for use in control-room retrofits and in control room of future plants. The fundamental types of control and monitoring tasks currently conducted by operators can be divided into four classifications: function monitoring tasks, control manipulation tasks, fault diagnostic tasks, and administrative tasks. There are three general types of controls used in today's NPPs, switches, pushbuttons, and analog controllers. Plant I and C systems include components to achieve a number of safety-related functions: measuring critical plant parameters, controlling critical plant parameters within safety limits, and automatically actuating protective devices if safe limits are exceeded. The types of information monitored by the control-room operators consist of the following parameters: pressure, fluid flow and level, neutron flux, temperature, component status, water chemistry, electrical, and process and area radiation. The basic types of monitoring devices common to nearly all NPP control rooms include: analog meters

Overload protection system for power inverter

Science.gov (United States)

Nagano, S. (Inventor)

1977-01-01

An overload protection system for a power inverter utilized a first circuit for monitoring current to the load from the power inverter to detect an overload and a control circuit to shut off the power inverter, when an overload condition was detected. At the same time, a monitoring current inverter was turned on to deliver current to the load at a very low power level. A second circuit monitored current to the load, from the monitoring current inverter, to hold the power inverter off through the control circuit, until the overload condition was cleared so that the control circuit may be deactivated in order for the power inverter to be restored after the monitoring current inverter is turned off completely.

Monitoring of radioactivity in the environs of Finnish nuclear power stations in 1986

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ilus, E.; Sjoeblom, K.L.; Aaltonen, H.; Klemola, S.; Arvela, H.

1987-06-01

Results of the environmental programmes monitoring radioactivity around the Finnish nuclear power stations in 1986 are reported. After the end of April the fallout nuclides from the Chernobyl accident predominated in all samples taken from the environs of the two power stations Loviisa and Olkiluoto. Radionuclides originating from the Finnish power stations were detected mainly in samples taken from the aquatic environment. The concentrations of the locally discharged nuclides were very low in comparison with the fallout nuclides and their impact on the radiation doses of the population was insignificant. Both nuclear power stations are situated in the main fallout area in Finland. The results of these large monitoring programmes give a good picture of the behaviour of the Chernobyl fallout in the specific areas in Finland

Wireless Infrastructure M2M Network For Distributed Power Grid Monitoring.

Science.gov (United States)

Gharavi, Hamid; Hu, Bin

2017-01-01

With the massive integration of distributed renewable energy sources (RESs) into the power system, the demand for timely and reliable network quality monitoring, control, and fault analysis is rapidly growing. Following the successful deployment of Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) in transmission systems for power monitoring, a new opportunity to utilize PMU measurement data for power quality assessment in distribution grid systems is emerging. The main problem however, is that a distribution grid system does not normally have the support of an infrastructure network. Therefore, the main objective in this paper is to develop a Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication network that can support wide ranging sensory data, including high rate synchrophasor data for real-time communication. In particular, we evaluate the suitability of the emerging IEEE 802.11ah standard by exploiting its important features, such as classifying the power grid sensory data into different categories according to their traffic characteristics. For performance evaluation we use our hardware in the loop grid communication network testbed to access the performance of the network.

Monitoring of raptors and their contamination levels in Norway.

Science.gov (United States)

Gjershaug, Jan Ove; Kålås, John Atle; Nygård, Torgeir; Herzke, Dorte; Folkestad, Alv Ottar

2008-09-01

This article summarizes results from raptor monitoring and contamination studies in Norway of the golden eagle, gyrfalcon, white-tailed sea eagle, osprey, peregrine, and merlin. Golden eagle and gyrfalcon populations have been monitored since 1990 as part of the "Monitoring Programme for Terrestrial Ecosystems" (TOV). No long-term trend in the population size or productivity of golden eagle has been shown in any of the 5 study areas. The reproductive output of gyrfalcon is monitored in 3 areas. It is positively correlated with the populations of its main prey species, the rock ptarmigan and the willow ptarmigan. The white-tailed sea eagle population has been monitored since 1974 by the Norwegian Ornithological Society, and the population is increasing. The levels of pesticides and polychlorinated biphenyls are low in the eggs of both the golden eagle and the gyrfalcon, but elevated levels and effects on reproduction have been indicated for a coastal subpopulation of golden eagle. The pollutant levels in white-tailed sea eagle are lower than in the Baltic population of sea eagles, and shell thinning was never severe overall, but individual eggs have contained pollutant concentrations above critical levels. The levels of pollutants in the bird-eating falcons, peregrine, and merlin were higher than in other species. New emerging pollutants, like brominated diphenylethers and perfluorinated organic compounds, could be detected in all species. By incorporating available published and unpublished data, we were able to produce time trends for pollutants and shell thickness over 4 decades.

Beaver Valley Power Station and Shippingport Atomic Power Station. 1977 annual environmental report: radiological. Volume 2

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1978-01-01

The environmental monitoring conducted during 1977 in the vicinity of the Beaver Valley Power Station and the Shippingport Atomic Power Station is described. The environmental monitoring program consists of onsite sampling of water, gaseous, and air effluents, as well as offsite monitoring of water, air, river sediments, and radiation levels in the vicinity of the site. The report discusses releases of small quantities of radioactivity to the Ohio River from the Beaver Valley Power Station and Shippingport Atomic Power Station during 1977

Instrumentation for chemical and radiochemical monitoring in nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nordmann, F.; Ballard, G.

2009-01-01

This article details the instrumentation implemented in French nuclear power plants for the monitoring of chemical and radiochemical effluents with the aim of limiting their environmental impact. It describes the controls performed with chemical automata for the search for drifts, anomalies or pollution in a given circuit. The operation principles of the different types of chemical automata are explained as well as the manual controls performed on samples manually collected. Content: 1 - general considerations; 2 - objectives of the chemical monitoring: usefulness of continuous monitoring with automata, transmission to control rooms and related actions, redundancy of automata; 3 - instrumentation and explanations for the main circuits: principle of chemical automata monitoring, instrumentation of the main primary circuit, instrumentation of the main secondary circuit, instrumentation of the tertiary circuit, preparation of water makeup (demineralized water), other loops, instrumentation for effluents and environment monitoring, measurement principles of chemical automata, control and maintenance of chemical automata; 4 - manual controls after sampling; 5 - radiochemical monitoring: automatized radiochemical measurements, manual radiochemical measurements; 6 - conclusion

Proceeding of 26th domestic symposium on present and future of integrity monitoring technology in nuclear power generation facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2000-06-01

As the 26th domestic symposium of Atomic Energy Research Committee, the Japan Welding Engineering Society, the symposium was held titled as 'Current status and future of integrity monitoring techniques in nuclear power facilities'. Six speakers gave lectures titled as 'Maintenance and integrity monitoring in nuclear power plants', 'Present status of fatigue and creep-fatigue monitoring techniques in the US', 'Fatigue monitoring system in Tsuruga-1 nuclear power station', 'Vibration monitoring technique of rotational machine', 'SCC monitoring with electrochemical noise analysis' and Monitoring technique for corrosive environments and crack shape'. (T. Tanaka)

Energy Efficient Monitoring for Intrusion Detection in Battery-Powered Wireless Mesh Networks

KAUST Repository

Hassanzadeh, Amin

2011-07-18

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN) are easy-to-deploy, low cost solutions for providing networking and internet services in environments with no network infrastructure, e.g., disaster areas and battlefields. Since electric power is not readily available in such environments battery-powered mesh routers, operating in an energy efficient manner, are required. To the best of our knowledge, the impact of energy efficient solutions, e.g., involving duty-cycling, on WMN intrusion detection systems, which require continuous monitoring, remains an open research problem. In this paper we propose that carefully chosen monitoring mesh nodes ensure continuous and complete detection coverage, while allowing non-monitoring mesh nodes to save energy through duty-cycling. We formulate the monitoring node selection problem as an optimization problem and propose distributed and centralized solutions for it, with different tradeoffs. Through extensive simulations and a proof-of-concept hardware/software implementation we demonstrate that our solutions extend the WMN lifetime by 8%, while ensuring, at the minimum, a 97% intrusion detection rate.

Nuclear power plant monitoring and fault diagnosis methods based on the artificial intelligence technique

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yoshikawa, S.; Saiki, A.; Ugolini, D.; Ozawa, K.

1996-01-01

The main objective of this paper is to develop an advanced diagnosis system based on the artificial intelligence technique to monitor the operation and to improve the operational safety of nuclear power plants. Three different methods have been elaborated in this study: an artificial neural network local diagnosis (NN ds ) scheme that acting at the component level discriminates between normal and abnormal transients, a model-based diagnostic reasoning mechanism that combines a physical causal network model-based knowledge compiler (KC) that generates applicable diagnostic rules from widely accepted physical knowledge compiler (KC) that generates applicable diagnostic rules from widely accepted physical knowledge. Although the three methods have been developed and verified independently, they are highly correlated and, when connected together, form a effective and robust diagnosis and monitoring tool. (authors)

Wireless power transfer and data communication for neural implants case study : epilepsy monitoring

CERN Document Server

Yilmaz, Gürkan

2017-01-01

This book presents new circuits and systems for implantable biomedical applications targeting neural recording. The authors describe a system design adapted to conform to the requirements of an epilepsy monitoring system. Throughout the book, these requirements are reflected in terms of implant size, power consumption, and data rate. In addition to theoretical background which explains the relevant technical challenges, the authors provide practical, step-by-step solutions to these problems. Readers will gain understanding of the numerical values in such a system, enabling projections for feasibility of new projects. Provides complete, system-level perspective for implantable batteryless biomedical system; Extends design example to implementation and long term in-vitro validation; Discusses system design concerns regarding wireless power transmission and wireless data communication, particularly for systems in which both are performed on the same channel/frequency; Presents fully-integrated, implantable syste...

A Review of the Condition Monitoring of Capacitors in Power Electronic Converters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Soliman, Hammam Abdelaal Hammam; Wang, Huai; Blaabjerg, Frede

2015-01-01

Capacitor is one of the reliability critical components in power electronic systems. In the last two decades, many efforts in the academic research have been devoted to the condition monitoring of capacitors to estimate their health status. Industry applications demand more reliable power...... electronics products with preventive maintenance. Nevertheless, most of the developed capacitor condition monitoring technologies are rarely adopted by industry due to the complexity, increased cost and other relevant issues. An overview of the prior-art research in this area is therefore needed to justify....... Therefore, this paper firstly classifies the capacitor condition monitoring methods into three categories, then the respective technology evolution from 1993 to 2015 is summarized. Remarks on the state-of-the-art research and the future opportunities targeting for practical industry applications are given....

A Review of the Condition Monitoring of Capacitors in Power Electronic Converters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Soliman, Hammam Abdelaal Hammam; Wang, Huai; Blaabjerg, Frede

2016-01-01

Capacitors are one type of reliability-critical components in power electronic systems. In the last two decades, many efforts in academic research have been devoted to the condition monitoring of capacitors to estimate their health status. Industry applications are demanding more reliable power...... electronics products with preventive maintenance. Nevertheless, most of the developed capacitor condition monitoring technologies are rarely adopted by industry due to the complexity, increased cost, and other relevant issues. An overview of the prior-art research in this area is therefore needed to justify......, this paper first classifies the capacitor condition monitoring methods into three categories, then the respective technology evolution in the last two decades is summarized. Finally, the state-of-the-art research and the future opportunities targeting for industry applications are given....

Reactive Power Impact on Lifetime Prediction of Two-level Wind Power Converter

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhou, Dao; Blaabjerg, Frede; Lau, M.

2013-01-01

The influence of reactive power injection on the dominating two-level wind power converter is investigated and compared in terms of power loss and thermal behavior. Then the lifetime of both the partial-scale and full-scale power converter is estimated based on the widely used Coffin-Manson model...

User guide to power management for PCs and monitors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Nordman, B.; Piette, M.A.; Kinney, K.; Webber, C. [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab., CA (United States). Environmental Energy Technologies Div.

1997-01-01

Power management of personal computers (PCs) and monitors has the potential to save significant amounts of electricity as well as deliver other economic and environmental benefits. The Environmental Protection Agency`s ENERGY STAR{reg_sign} program has transformed the PC market so that equipment capable of power management is now widely available. However, previous studies have found that many Energy Star compliant computer systems are not accomplishing energy savings. The principal reasons for this are systems not being enabled for power management or a circumstance that prevents power management from operating. This guide is intended to provide information to computer support workers to increase the portion of systems that successfully power manage. The guide introduces power management concepts and the variety of benefits that power management can bring. It then explains how the parts of a computer system work together to enter and leave power management states. Several common computer system types are addressed, as well as the complications that networks bring to power management. Detailed instructions for checking and configuring several system types are provided, along with trouble shooting advice. The guide concludes with a discussion of how to purchase Energy Star compliant systems and future directions for power management of PCs and related equipment.

Implementation of a radiological emergency monitoring system for Bruce Power nuclear power plant (Canada); Implementierung eines radiologischen Umgebungsueberwachungsmesssystems fuer das Kernkraftwerk Bruce Power (Kanada)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Madaric, M. [Saphymo GmbH, Frankfurt (Germany)

2016-07-01

The Bruce Power nuclear power plant (BP NPP) in Ontario, Canada, is the largest nuclear generating station in the world, operating 8 nuclear reactors producing 6300 MW. In correlation with Bruce Power's safety culture, ''Safety first'' and continuous improvements are essential and substantial parts of the Bruce Power philosophy and management system. After the Fukushima nuclear accident the existing radiological emergency monitoring was analyzed and improved.

Low-Power, Chip-Scale, Carbon Dioxide Gas Sensors for Spacesuit Monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Rani, Asha; Shi, Chen; Thomson, Brian; Debnath, Ratan; Wen, Boamei; Motayed, Abhishek; Chullen, Cinda

2018-01-01

N5 Sensors, Inc. through a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) contract award has been developing ultra-small, low-power carbon dioxide (CO2) gas sensors, suited for monitoring CO2 levels inside NASA spacesuits. Due to the unique environmental conditions within the spacesuits, such as high humidity, large temperature swings, and operating pressure swings, measurement of key gases relevant to astronaut's safety and health such as(CO2), is quite challenging. Conventional non-dispersive infrared absorption based CO2 sensors present challenges inside the spacesuits due to size, weight, and power constraints, along with the ability to sense CO2 in a high humidity environment. Unique chip-scale, nanoengineered chemiresistive gas-sensing architecture has been developed for this application, which can be operated in a typical space-suite environmental conditions. Unique design combining the selective adsorption properties of the nanophotocatalytic clusters of metal-oxides and metals, provides selective detection of CO2 in high relative humidity conditions. All electronic design provides a compact and low-power solution, which can be implemented for multipoint detection of CO2 inside the spacesuits. This paper will describe the sensor architecture, development of new photocatalytic material for better sensor response, and advanced structure for better sensitivity and shorter response times.

Substantiation of the radiation monitoring scope in the region of nuclear power plant location

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zykova, A S; Zhakov, Yu A; Yambrovskii, Ya M

1977-12-01

To provide radiation safety of the population in the region of nuclear power plant location, it is necessary to define the character and quantity of radiation monitoring. On the basis of radiation monitoring of effluents from operating nuclear power plants it is found that the effluents can be registered at a distance of 5-7 km from the plant. The quantity of sample analysis of the main enviromental objectives must provide an exact definition of the content of radioactive substances produced by radioactive fallouts and effluents from nuclear power plants.

Substantiation of the radiation monitoring scope in the region of nuclear power plant location

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zykova, A.S.; Zhakov, Yu.A.; Jambrovskij, Ya.M.

1977-01-01

To provide radiation safety of the population in the region of nuclear power plant location, it is necessary to define the character and quantity of radiation monitoring. On the basis of radiation monitoring of flowouts from operating nuclear power plants it is found that the flowouts can be registered at a distance of 5-7 km from the plant. The quantity of sample analysis of the main enviromental objectives must provide an exact definition of the content of radioactive substances produced by radioactive fallouts and flowouts from nuclear power plants

Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory annual environmental monitoring report, calendar year 1997

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1997-12-31

The results of the effluent and environmental monitoring programs at the three Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) sites are summarized and assessed in this report. The effluent and environmental monitoring programs conducted by KAPL are designed to determine the effectiveness of treatment and control methods, to provide measurement of the concentrations in effluents for comparison with applicable standards, and to assess resultant concentrations in the environment. The monitoring programs include analyses of samples of liquid and gaseous effluents for chemical constituents and radioactivity as well as monitoring of environmental air, water, sediment, and fish. Radiation measurements are also made around the perimeter of each site and at off-site background locations.

Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory annual environmental monitoring report, calendar year 1997

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1997-01-01

The results of the effluent and environmental monitoring programs at the three Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) sites are summarized and assessed in this report. The effluent and environmental monitoring programs conducted by KAPL are designed to determine the effectiveness of treatment and control methods, to provide measurement of the concentrations in effluents for comparison with applicable standards, and to assess resultant concentrations in the environment. The monitoring programs include analyses of samples of liquid and gaseous effluents for chemical constituents and radioactivity as well as monitoring of environmental air, water, sediment, and fish. Radiation measurements are also made around the perimeter of each site and at off-site background locations

Support of the Ukrainian supervisory authority in establishing a modern nuclear power plant monitoring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Beyer, M.; Carl, H.; Schumann, P.; Seidel, A.; Weiss, F.P.; Zschau, J.; Nowak, K.

2000-01-01

The type of monitoring of nuclear power plants in Ukraine practiced in the early nineties provided the supervisory authority with only inadequate access to information about the current safety status of plants. For the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, unit 5, a technical system to improve operational monitoring has been designed, installed and commissioned for trial operation at the end of 1995 as a pilot project. The system complements existing operational checking and monitoring facilities by including modern means of information technology. It enables concentration on a continuous monitoring of the state of unit 5 in normal operation and in cases of anormalies or incidents so that when recognisable deviations from the regular plant operation occur, the authority can immediately inquire and if necessary impose conditions on the operator. In 1997, the Information and Crisis Centre of the Ukraninian supervisory authority in Kiev was equipped with the most essential technical means necessary for quasi-simultaneous transfer of data and voice and for monitoring purposes and connected to the Centre to the Zaporozhye system. A similar monitoring system for both VVER-440 units of the Rovno nuclear power plant by analogy with the pilot project was specified and put into operation and connected to the ICC in 1998. (orig.) [de

Varying ultrasound power level to distinguish surgical instruments and tissue.

Science.gov (United States)

Ren, Hongliang; Anuraj, Banani; Dupont, Pierre E

2018-03-01

We investigate a new framework of surgical instrument detection based on power-varying ultrasound images with simple and efficient pixel-wise intensity processing. Without using complicated feature extraction methods, we identified the instrument with an estimated optimal power level and by comparing pixel values of varying transducer power level images. The proposed framework exploits the physics of ultrasound imaging system by varying the transducer power level to effectively distinguish metallic surgical instruments from tissue. This power-varying image-guidance is motivated from our observations that ultrasound imaging at different power levels exhibit different contrast enhancement capabilities between tissue and instruments in ultrasound-guided robotic beating-heart surgery. Using lower transducer power levels (ranging from 40 to 75% of the rated lowest ultrasound power levels of the two tested ultrasound scanners) can effectively suppress the strong imaging artifacts from metallic instruments and thus, can be utilized together with the images from normal transducer power levels to enhance the separability between instrument and tissue, improving intraoperative instrument tracking accuracy from the acquired noisy ultrasound volumetric images. We performed experiments in phantoms and ex vivo hearts in water tank environments. The proposed multi-level power-varying ultrasound imaging approach can identify robotic instruments of high acoustic impedance from low-signal-to-noise-ratio ultrasound images by power adjustments.

New instrument for the confirmation of declared power histories of central station nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dowdy, E.J.; Robba, A.A.; Hastings, R.D.; France, S.W.

1979-01-01

An operationally simple, portable, microprocessor-based, unattended reactor power monitor was developed for International Atomic Energy Agency inspector use in confirming operator records of the power history of nuclear power plants. The monitor is based on the principle that the leakage neutron flux outside the biological shield is proportional to the thermal power level. The leakage flux is detected and compared with the leakage flux from the same reactor for a confirmed calibration period. Several output options are available, and a record of more than three months of hourly measurements of the themal power of the plant can be obtained. The monitor has battery backup power for interruptions of host power of duration up to 18 hours

Advanced targeted monitoring of high temperature components in power plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Roos, E; Maile, K; Jovanovic, A [MPA Stuttgart (Germany)

1999-12-31

The article presents the idea of targeted monitoring of high-temperature pressurized components in fossil-fueled power plants, implemented within a modular software system and using, in addition to pressure and temperature data, also displacement and strain measurement data. The concept has been implemented as a part of a more complex company-oriented Internet/Intranet system of MPA Stuttgart (ALIAS). ALIAS enables to combine smoothly the monitoring results with those of the off-line analysis, e. g. sensitivity analyses, comparison with preceding experience (case studies), literature search, search in material databases -(experimental and standard data), nonlinear FE-analysis, etc. The concept and the system have been implemented in real plant conditions several power plants in Germany and Europe: one of these applications and its results are described more in detail in the presentation. (orig.) 9 refs.

Advanced targeted monitoring of high temperature components in power plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Roos, E.; Maile, K.; Jovanovic, A. [MPA Stuttgart (Germany)

1998-12-31

The article presents the idea of targeted monitoring of high-temperature pressurized components in fossil-fueled power plants, implemented within a modular software system and using, in addition to pressure and temperature data, also displacement and strain measurement data. The concept has been implemented as a part of a more complex company-oriented Internet/Intranet system of MPA Stuttgart (ALIAS). ALIAS enables to combine smoothly the monitoring results with those of the off-line analysis, e. g. sensitivity analyses, comparison with preceding experience (case studies), literature search, search in material databases -(experimental and standard data), nonlinear FE-analysis, etc. The concept and the system have been implemented in real plant conditions several power plants in Germany and Europe: one of these applications and its results are described more in detail in the presentation. (orig.) 9 refs.

Environmental monitoring of low-level radioactive materials

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jester, W.A.; Yu, C.

1985-01-01

The authors discuss some of the current rationale behind the environmental monitoring of low-level radioactive materials are as follows: Committee 4 of the International commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) defined three broad objectives for environmental monitoring: 1) assessment of the actual or potential exposure of humans to radioactive materials or radiation present in their environment or the estimation of the probable upper limits of such exposure; 2) scientific investigation, sometimes related to the assessment of exposures, sometimes to other objectives; 3) improved public relations. Various regulations have been written requiring environmental monitoring to ensure that the public is not being exposed to excessive amounts of radiation from natural sources or from human activities. An example of the monitoring of natural sources of radiation is a requirement of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) National Interim Primary Drinking Water Regulations whereby U.S. water supply companies must have drinking water monitored at least once every four years for radionuclides, primarily the naturally occurring radium-226

[Space-time water monitoring system at the Iriklinsk hydroelectric power station].

Science.gov (United States)

Deriabin, D G; Poliakov, E G; Priakhina, A A; Karimov, I F

2002-01-01

The Microbiosensor B 17677 F test system was applied to make a space-time monitoring of the biotoxicity of water used for production and everyday purposes at the Iriklinsk hydroelectric power station (IHEPS) and to identify the leading causes determining the biotoxicity of tested samples. There were seasonal variations in the biotoxicity with the maximum in spring and with minimum in winter and spring and a relationship of the spring rise in the biotoxicity to water pH changes. There was also an association of the certain values of the biotoxicity of industrial water with the concentration of petroleum products that are major pollutants at the IHEPS. The datum points that characterize the maximum level of technogenic exposure were identified.

A cell-level power management IC in BCD-SOI for partial power processing in Concentrating-PV systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zaman, M.S.; Wen, Y.; Fernandes, R.; Buter, B.; Doorn, T.S.; Dijkstra, M.; Bergveld, H.J.; Trescases, O.

2014-01-01

This work presents a power management IC used to mitigate the effects of mismatch in Concentrating-Photovoltaic (CPV) systems. The IC contains a bi-directional dc-dc converter, an auxiliary boost converter to generate the internal 10 V power supply, as well as protection and monitoring circuits. The

Air-Flow-Driven Triboelectric Nanogenerators for Self-Powered Real-Time Respiratory Monitoring.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Meng; Zhang, Jiahao; Tang, Yingjie; Li, Jun; Zhang, Baosen; Liang, Erjun; Mao, Yanchao; Wang, Xudong

2018-06-04

Respiration is one of the most important vital signs of humans, and respiratory monitoring plays an important role in physical health management. A low-cost and convenient real-time respiratory monitoring system is extremely desirable. In this work, we demonstrated an air-flow-driven triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) for self-powered real-time respiratory monitoring by converting mechanical energy of human respiration into electric output signals. The operation of the TENG was based on the air-flow-driven vibration of a flexible nanostructured polytetrafluoroethylene (n-PTFE) thin film in an acrylic tube. This TENG can generate distinct real-time electric signals when exposed to the air flow from different breath behaviors. It was also found that the accumulative charge transferred in breath sensing corresponds well to the total volume of air exchanged during the respiration process. Based on this TENG device, an intelligent wireless respiratory monitoring and alert system was further developed, which used the TENG signal to directly trigger a wireless alarm or dial a cell phone to provide timely alerts in response to breath behavior changes. This research offers a promising solution for developing self-powered real-time respiratory monitoring devices.

Beaver Valley Power Station and Shippingport Atomic Power Station. 1984 Annual environmental report, radiological. Volume 2

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1985-01-01

This report describes the Radiological Environmental Monitoring Program conducted during 1984 in the vicinity of the Beaver Valley Power Station and the Shippingport Atomic Power Station. The Radiological Environmental Program consists of on-site sampling of water and gaseous effluents and off-site monitoring of water, air, river sediments, soils, food pathway samples, and radiation levels in the vicinity of the site. This report discusses the results of this monitoring during 1984. The environmental program outlined in the Beaver Valley Power Station Technical Specifications was followed throughout 1984. The results of this environmental monitoring program show that Shippingport Atomic Power Station and Beaver Valley Power Station operations have not adversely affected the surrounding environment. 23 figs., 18 tabs

Knowledge-based and integrated monitoring and diagnosis in autonomous power systems

Science.gov (United States)

Momoh, J. A.; Zhang, Z. Z.

1990-01-01

A new technique of knowledge-based and integrated monitoring and diagnosis (KBIMD) to deal with abnormalities and incipient or potential failures in autonomous power systems is presented. The KBIMD conception is discussed as a new function of autonomous power system automation. Available diagnostic modelling, system structure, principles and strategies are suggested. In order to verify the feasibility of the KBIMD, a preliminary prototype expert system is designed to simulate the KBIMD function in a main electric network of the autonomous power system.

Concept of voltage and frequency monitoring for a nuclear power plant normal power supply system - PWR 1300 MWe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Andrade, R.B. de

1990-01-01

Voltage and frequency monitoring concept for a Nuclear Power Plant Normal Power Supply System (PWR 1300 MWe) is described based on the phylosophy adopted for Angra 2 and e NPP's. Some suggested setpoints are only guidance values and can be modified during plant commissioning for a better performance of the whole protection system. (author) [pt

Monitoring of low level environmental gamma exposure by the centralized radiation monitoring system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Katagiri, Hiroshi; Kobayashi, Hideo; Obata, Kazuichi; Kokubu, Morinobu; Itoh, Naoji

1981-07-01

In the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI), a centralized automatic radiation monitoring system developed 20 years ago has recently been improved to monitor low level gamma radiation more accurately in normal operation of the nuclear facilities and to detect abnormal radioactive releases more effectively. The present state of the system is described. This system puts together environmental monitoring data such as gamma exposure rate (20 points), radioactive concentration in the air (4 points) and in water (2 drains), and meteorological items (14 including wind directions, wind speeds, solar radiation and air temperatures at a observation tower of 40 m height). Environmental monitoring around the JAERI site is carried out effectively using the system. Data processing system consists of a central processing unit, a magnetic disk, a magnetic tape, a line printer and a console typewriter. The data at respective monitoring points are transmitted to the central monitoring room by wireless or telephone line. All data are printed out and field in magnetic disk and magnetic tape every 10 minutes. When the emergency levels are exceeded, however, the data are automatically output on a line printer every 2 minute. This system can distinguish very low gamma exposure due to gaseous effluents, about 1 mR/y, from the background. Even in monthly exposures, calculated values based on the data of release amount and meteorology are in good agreement with the measured ones. (author)

Mortality monitoring design for utility-scale solar power facilities

Science.gov (United States)

Huso, Manuela; Dietsch, Thomas; Nicolai, Chris

2016-05-27

IntroductionSolar power represents an important and rapidly expanding component of the renewable energy portfolio of the United States (Lovich and Ennen, 2011; Hernandez and others, 2014). Understanding the impacts of renewable energy development on wildlife is a priority for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in compliance with Department of Interior Order No. 3285 (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2009) to “develop best management practices for renewable energy and transmission projects on the public lands to ensure the most environmentally responsible development and delivery of renewable energy.” Recent studies examining effects of renewable energy development on mortality of migratory birds have primarily focused on wind energy (California Energy Commission and California Department of Fish and Game, 2007), and in 2012 the FWS published guidance for addressing wildlife conservation concerns at all stages of land-based wind energy development (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2012). As yet, no similar guidelines exist for solar development, and no published studies have directly addressed the methodology needed to accurately estimate mortality of birds and bats at solar facilities. In the absence of such guidelines, ad hoc methodologies applied to solar energy projects may lead to estimates of wildlife mortality rates that are insufficiently accurate and precise to meaningfully inform conversations regarding unintended consequences of this energy source and management decisions to mitigate impacts. Although significant advances in monitoring protocols for wind facilities have been made in recent years, there remains a need to provide consistent guidance and study design to quantify mortality of bats, and resident and migrating birds at solar power facilities (Walston and others, 2015).In this document, we suggest methods for mortality monitoring at solar facilities that are based on current methods used at wind power facilities but adapted for the

Performance Evaluation of Energy-Autonomous Sensors Using Power-Harvesting Beacons for Environmental Monitoring in Internet of Things (IoT).

Science.gov (United States)

Moiş, George Dan; Sanislav, Teodora; Folea, Silviu Corneliu; Zeadally, Sherali

2018-05-25

Environmental conditions and air quality monitoring have become crucial today due to the undeniable changes of the climate and accelerated urbanization. To efficiently monitor environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, and the levels of pollutants, such as fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the air, and to collect data covering vast geographical areas, the development of cheap energy-autonomous sensors for large scale deployment and fine-grained data acquisition is required. Rapid advances in electronics and communication technologies along with the emergence of paradigms such as Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) and the Internet of Things (IoT) have led to the development of low-cost sensor devices that can operate unattended for long periods of time and communicate using wired or wireless connections through the Internet. We investigate the energy efficiency of an environmental monitoring system based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons that operate in the IoT environment. The beacons developed measure the temperature, the relative humidity, the light intensity, and the CO₂ and VOC levels in the air. Based on our analysis we have developed efficient sleep scheduling algorithms that allow the sensor nodes developed to operate autonomously without requiring the replacement of the power supply. The experimental results show that low-power sensors communicating using BLE technology can operate autonomously (from the energy perspective) in applications that monitor the environment or the air quality in indoor or outdoor settings.

Performance Evaluation of Energy-Autonomous Sensors Using Power-Harvesting Beacons for Environmental Monitoring in Internet of Things (IoT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

George Dan Moiş

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Environmental conditions and air quality monitoring have become crucial today due to the undeniable changes of the climate and accelerated urbanization. To efficiently monitor environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, and the levels of pollutants, such as fine particulate matter (PM2.5 and volatile organic compounds (VOCs in the air, and to collect data covering vast geographical areas, the development of cheap energy-autonomous sensors for large scale deployment and fine-grained data acquisition is required. Rapid advances in electronics and communication technologies along with the emergence of paradigms such as Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs and the Internet of Things (IoT have led to the development of low-cost sensor devices that can operate unattended for long periods of time and communicate using wired or wireless connections through the Internet. We investigate the energy efficiency of an environmental monitoring system based on Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE beacons that operate in the IoT environment. The beacons developed measure the temperature, the relative humidity, the light intensity, and the CO2 and VOC levels in the air. Based on our analysis we have developed efficient sleep scheduling algorithms that allow the sensor nodes developed to operate autonomously without requiring the replacement of the power supply. The experimental results show that low-power sensors communicating using BLE technology can operate autonomously (from the energy perspective in applications that monitor the environment or the air quality in indoor or outdoor settings.

Development of a computerized system for performance monitoring and diagnostics in nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chou, G.H.; Chao, H.J.

1995-01-01

An on-line computerized system for thermal performance monitoring and diagnostics has been developed at the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER). It was the product of the ChinShan plant performance Monitoring, Analysis and Diagnostics Expert System (CS-MADES) project sponsored by Taiwan Power Company (TPC). The system can carry out turbine performance monitoring and analysis during normal operation, and yield diagnostic results of component degradation after finding out the missing generation problems. Three subsystems were generated to support the whole system framework. They are Test Data Processing Subsystem (TDPS), On-line Monitoring and Analysis Subsystem (OMAS), and Thermal Performance Diagnostics Expert System (TPDES). Some visible benefits have been gained so far through the prototype system installed at the Chinshan nuclear power station

Online Monitoring of Concrete Structures in Nuclear Power Plants: Interim Report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mahadevan, Sankaran [Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States); Cai, Guowei [Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States); Agarwal, Vivek [Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)

2015-03-01

The existing fleet of nuclear power plants in the United States have initial operating licenses of 40 years, and many of these plants have applied for and received license extensions. As plant structures, systems, and components age, their useful life—considering both structural integrity and performance—is reduced as a result of deterioration of the materials. Assessment and management of aging concrete structures in nuclear plants require a more systematic approach than simple reliance on existing code-based design margins of safety. Structural health monitoring is required to produce actionable information regarding structural integrity that supports operational and maintenance decisions. The online monitoring of concrete structures project conducted under the Advanced Instrumentation, Information, and Control Technologies Pathway of the Light Water Reactor Sustainability program at Idaho National Laboratory is seeking to develop and demonstrate capabilities for concrete structures health monitoring. Through this research project, several national laboratories and Vanderbilt University propose to develop a framework of research activities for the health monitoring of nuclear power plant concrete structures that includes the integration of four elements—damage modeling, monitoring, data analytics, and uncertainty quantification. This report briefly discusses activities in this project during October-December, 2014. The most significant activity during this period was the organizing of a two-day workshop on research needs in online monitoring of concrete structures, hosted by Vanderbilt University in November 2014. Thirty invitees from academia, industry and government participated in the workshop. The presentations and discussions at the workshop surveyed current activities related to concrete structures deterioration modeling and monitoring, and identified the challenges, knowledge gaps, and opportunities for advancing the state of the art; these

Study on intermediate frequency power supply automatic monitor system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Yuntong; Xu Bin

2007-06-01

A new design project of the automatic monitor system for the intermediate frequency power supply system by using the communication server is put for- ward and the realizing principle method and the key technique are clarified in detail. This system made use of the conversion function with the series communication server's control, realized the data collecting function by the double machine backup and redundancy. The new network system adopted the photoelectric-insulated-communication connect device and the diagnosis technique, increased the anti-interference ability, the communication adopted the technique by the alarm information sending out in first and circularly repeating, the slowly speed is overcame in the original monitor network system, and strengthened the celerity of the monitor system and the reliability of the alarm report. After the new monitor system running, the result shows that the functions is more perfect than the original monitor system, the usage is more convenient, have the higher and dependable stability, the report of alarm is more quickly, and is convenient for the analysis after the trouble, at the same time, the system still have the strong ability and value to expand. (authors)

On-Road Driver Monitoring System Based on a Solar-Powered In-Vehicle Embedded Platform

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yen-Lin Chen

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This study presents an on-road driver monitoring system, which is implemented on a stand-alone in-vehicle embedded system and driven by effective solar cells. The driver monitoring function is performed by an efficient eye detection technique. Through the driver’s eye movements captured from the camera, the attention states of the driver can be determined and any fatigue states can be avoided. This driver monitoring technique is implemented on a low-power embedded in-vehicle platform. Besides, this study also proposed monitoring machinery that can detect the brightness around the car to effectively determine whether this in-vehicle system is driven by the solar cells or by the vehicle battery. On sunny days, the in-vehicle system can be powered by solar cell in places without the vehicle battery. While in the evenings or on rainy days, the ambient solar brightness is insufficient, and the system is powered by the vehicle battery. The proposed system was tested under the conditions that the solar irradiance is 10 to 113 W/m2 and solar energy and brightness at 10 to 170. From the testing results, when the outside solar radiation is high, the brightness of the inside of the car is increased, and the eye detection accuracy can also increase as well. Therefore, this solar powered driver monitoring system can be efficiently applied to electric cars to save energy consumption and promote the driving safety.

Thermometric- and Acoustic-Based Beam Power Monitor for Ultra-Bright X-Rays

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2010-01-01

A design for an average beam power monitor for ultra-bright X-ray sources is proposed that makes simultaneous use of calorimetry and radiation acoustics. Radiation incident on a solid target will induce heating and ultrasonic vibrations, both of which may be measured to give a fairly precise value of the beam power. The monitor is intended for measuring ultra-bright Free-Electron Laser (FEL) X-ray beams, for which traditional monitoring technologies such as photo-diodes or scintillators are unsuitable. The monitor consists of a Boron Carbide (B 4 C) target designed to absorb most of the incident beam's energy. Resistance temperature detectors (RTD) and piezoelectric actuators are mounted on the outward faces of the target to measure the temperature changes and ultrasonic vibrations induced by the incident beam. The design was tested using an optical pulsed beam (780 nm, 120 and 360 Hz) from a Ti:sapphire oscillator at several energies between 0.8 and 2.6 mJ. The RTDs measured an increase in temperature of about 10 K over a period of several minutes. The piezoelectric sensors recorded ringing acoustic oscillations at 580 ± 40 kHz. Most importantly, the amplitude of the acoustic signals was observed to scale linearly with beam power up to 2 mJ of pulse energy. Above this pulse energy, the vibrational signals became nonlinear. Several causes for this nonlinearity are discussed, including amplifier saturation and piezoelectric saturation. Despite this nonlinearity, these measurements demonstrate the feasibility of such a beam power measurement device. The advantage of two distinct measurements (acoustic and thermometric) provides a useful method of calibration that is unavailable to current LCLS diagnostics tools.

Converter Monitoring Unit for Retrofit of Wind Power Converters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rannestad, Bjorn; Maarbjerg, Anders Eggert; Frederiksen, Kristian

2018-01-01

A Converter Monitoring Unit (CMU), which will enable condition monitoring of wind turbine converters is presented in this paper. Reducing the cost of corrective maintenance by means of condition monitoring is a way of lowering Operation & Maintenance (O&M) costs for wind turbine systems....... The CMU must be able to detect a broad range of failure modes related to Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor (IGBT) power modules and associated gate drives. IGBT collector-emitter on-state voltage (vceon) and current (ic) is sampled in the CMU and used for detection of emerging failures. A new method...... for compensation of unwanted inductive voltage drop in the vceon measurement path is presented, enabling retrofitting of CMUs in existing wind turbines. Finally, experimental results obtained on a prototype CMU are presented. Experimentally the vceon dependency to IGBT junction temperature and deterioration...

Monitoring and studies of environmental cumulative dose of Guangdong Da Ya Bay nuclear-power station by thermoluminescent dosimetry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wan Yusong; Li Shili; Yang Lin; Feng Zhanglin; Kong Lingfeng; Yu Jinglan

1999-01-01

The author presents the environmental γ radiation routine monitoring by TLD in Guangdong Da Ya Bay Nuclear Power Station and its peripheral 50 km area, which has been put into commercial operation since 1994. The year's monitoring result indicates that there is no obvious change of the total environmental γ radiation in Da Ya Bay Nuclear Power Station and its peripheral 50 km area. But the influence of gas release γ radiation was monitored in 1995 at the monitoring points in the area of 0∼1 km from the nuclear power station

Technical support to environmental restoration division for groundwater level monitoring effort at entombed Hallam Nuclear Power Facility. Final report, August 1, 1993--July 31, 1993

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1994-01-01

This report provides an interim summary of information from a water-level monitoring program. The information was collected by the US Geological Survey (USGS) over a 6-month period. The monitoring program between the US DOE and the USGS was set up to measure water levels in 16 observation wells at the Hallam Nuclear Facility in Hallam, Nebraska. The summary of USGS data includes: (1) a description of the USGS monitoring program; (2) a description of the collection of continuous water-level data; (3) a description of the collection of monthly water-level data; (4) table of observation well number, latitude, longitude, and depth; (5) table of monthly ground-water levels data; (6) table of recorder wells, rainfall, and barometric pressure values; (7) table of recorder well, rainfall, and barometric pressure daily values; and (8) hydrographs of selected wells. 7 figs., 3 tabs

Introduction of virtual detectors for core monitoring system of korean standard nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eun, Ki Lee.; Yong, Hee Kim.; Jybe, Ho Cha.; Moon, Ghu Park.

2000-01-01

A novel algorithm known as the virtual detector method (VDM) is introduced to reconstruct the axial power shape (APS) for the on-line core monitoring system of the Korean Standard Nuclear Power Plant (KSNP). A pure statistical method (SM) is also introduced and the results are compared with the currently implemented five-mode Fourier fitting method (FFM). VDM adopts nine virtual detector informations coupled with a regression model based on the Alternating Conditional Expectation (ACE) algorithm. VDM uses Fourier fitting with the information of nine virtual detectors expanded from the currently implemented FFM, which uses five-level detector information. By introducing virtual detectors, we can increase the number of axial detectors, and thus expect the computational errors of APS to be reduced. The two methods (SM and VDM) are applied to in-core mapping data from six cycles of Yong Gwang nuclear power plant Units 3 and 4. For ∼ 3500 cases of APSs extracted from a cycle of operation which is simulated by a three-dimensional nodal code, the accuracy of the three methods (SM, VDM, FFM) is compared. The average root mean square (RMS) error and average of axial peaking error of SM and VDM resulted in reduction of more than 50 % and 70 %, respectively, relative to FFM. VDM and SM also show more realistic axial profiles and predict more accurate axial peaking than FFM. These improvements can contribute to a larger thermal margin. SM shows the most accurate results for all cases. VDM can almost obtain the same results as SM, and using far fewer computation steps. VDM can be a useful tool for precisely reconstructing axial power shapes in a core monitoring system. (authors)

International remote monitoring project Argentina Nuclear Power Station Spent Fuel Transfer Remote Monitoring System

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schneider, S.; Lucero, R.; Glidewell, D.

1997-01-01

The Autoridad Regulataria Nuclear (ARN) and the United States Department of Energy (DOE) are cooperating on the development of a Remote Monitoring System for nuclear nonproliferation efforts. A Remote Monitoring System for spent fuel transfer will be installed at the Argentina Nuclear Power Station in Embalse, Argentina. The system has been designed by Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), with Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) providing gamma and neutron sensors. This project will test and evaluate the fundamental design and implementation of the Remote Monitoring System in its application to regional and international safeguards efficiency. This paper provides a description of the monitoring system and its functions. The Remote Monitoring System consists of gamma and neutron radiation sensors, RF systems, and video systems integrated into a coherent functioning whole. All sensor data communicate over an Echelon LonWorks Network to a single data logger. The Neumann DCM 14 video module is integrated into the Remote Monitoring System. All sensor and image data are stored on a Data Acquisition System (DAS) and archived and reviewed on a Data and Image Review Station (DIRS). Conventional phone lines are used as the telecommunications link to transmit on-site collected data and images to remote locations. The data and images are authenticated before transmission. Data review stations will be installed at ARN in Buenos Aires, Argentina, ABACC in Rio De Janeiro, IAEA Headquarters in Vienna, and Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 2 refs., 2 figs

Modular remote radiation monitor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lacerda, Fabio; Farias, Marcos S.; Aghina, Mauricio A.C.; Oliveira, Mauro V.

2013-01-01

The Modular Remote Radiation Monitor (MRRM) is a novel radiation monitor suitable for monitoring environmental exposure to ionizing radiation. It is a portable compact-size low-power microprocessor-based electronic device which provides its monitoring data to other electronic systems, physically distant from it, by means of an electronic communication channel, which can be wired or wireless according to the requirements of each application. Besides its low-power highly-integrated circuit design, the Modular Remote Radiation Monitor is presented in a modular architecture, which promotes full compliance to the technical requirements of different applications while minimizing cost, size and power consumption. Its communication capability also supports the implementation of a network of multiple radiation monitors connected to a supervisory system, capable of remotely controlling each monitor independently as well as visualizing the radiation levels from all monitors. A prototype of the MRRM, functionally equivalent to the MRA-7027 radiation monitor, was implemented and connected to a wired MODBUS network of MRA-7027 monitors, responsible for monitoring ionizing radiation inside Argonauta reactor room at Instituto de Engenharia Nuclear. Based on the highly positive experimental results obtained, further design is currently underway in order to produce a consumer version of the MRRM. (author)

Monitoring Disaster-Related Power Outages Using NASA Black Marble Nighttime Light Product

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Z.; Román, M. O.; Sun, Q.; Molthan, A. L.; Schultz, L. A.; Kalb, V. L.

2018-04-01

Timely and accurate monitoring of disruptions to the electricity grid, including the magnitude, spatial extent, timing, and duration of net power losses, is needed to improve situational awareness of disaster response and long-term recovery efforts. Satellite-derived Nighttime Lights (NTL) provide an indication of human activity patterns and have been successfully used to monitor disaster-related power outages. The global 500 m spatial resolution National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Black Marble NTL daily standard product suite (VNP46) is generated from Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Day/Night Band (DNB) onboard the NASA/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi- NPP) satellite, which began operations on 19 January 2012. With its improvements in product accuracy (including critical atmospheric and BRDF correction routines), the VIIRS daily Black Mable product enables systematic monitoring of outage conditions across all stages of the disaster management cycle.

Aging and condition monitoring of electric cables in nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lofaro, R.J.; Grove, E.; Soo, P.

1998-05-01

There are a variety of environmental stressors in nuclear power plants that can influence the aging rate of components; these include elevated temperatures, high radiation fields, and humid conditions. Exposure to these stressors over long periods of time can cause degradation of components that may go undetected unless the aging mechanisms are identified and monitored. In some cases the degradation may be mitigated by maintenance or replacement. However, some components receive neither and are thus more susceptible to aging degradation, which might lead to failure. One class of components that falls in this category is electric cables. Cables are very often overlooked in aging analyses since they are passive components that require no maintenance. However, they are very important components since they provide power to safety related equipment and transmit signals to and from instruments and controls. This paper will look at the various aging mechanisms and failure modes associated with electric cables. Condition monitoring techniques that may be useful for monitoring degradation of cables will also be discussed

On-line generation of core monitoring power distribution in the SCOMS couppled with core design code

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, K. B.; Kim, K. K.; In, W. K.; Ji, S. K.; Jang, M. H.

2002-01-01

The paper provides the description of the methodology and main program module of power distribution calculation of SCOMS(SMART COre Monitoring System). The simulation results of the SMART core using the developed SCOMS are included. The planar radial peaking factor(Fxy) is relatively high in SMART core because control banks are inserted to the core at normal operation. If the conventional core monitoring method is adapted to SMART, highly skewed planar radial peaking factor Fxy yields an excessive conservatism and reduces the operation margin. In addition to this, the error of the core monitoring would be enlarged and thus operating margin would be degraded, because it is impossible to precalculate the core monitoring constants for all the control banks configurations taking into account the operation history in the design stage. To get rid of these drawbacks in the conventional power distribution calculation methodology, new methodology to calculate the three dimensional power distribution is developed. Core monitoring constants are calculated with the core design code (MASTER) which is on-line coupled with SCOMS. Three dimensional (3D) power distribution and the several peaking factors are calculated using the in-core detector signals and core monitoring constant provided at real time. Developed methodology is applied to the SMART core and the various core states are simulated. Based on the simulation results, it is founded that the three dimensional peaking factor to calculate the Linear Power Density and the pseudo hot-pin axial power distribution to calculate the Departure Nucleate Boiling Ratio show the more conservative values than those of the best-estimated core design code, and SCOMS adapted developed methodology can secures the more operation margin than the conventional methodology

Real-time identification of residential appliance events based on power monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Zhao; Zhu, Zhicheng; Wei, Zhiqiang; Yin, Bo; Wang, Xiuwei

2018-03-01

Energy monitoring for specific home appliances has been regarded as the pre-requisite for reducing residential energy consumption. To enhance the accuracy of identifying operation status of household appliances and to keep pace with the development of smart power grid, this paper puts forward the integration of electric current and power data on the basis of existing algorithm. If average power difference of several adjacent cycles varies from the baseline and goes beyond the pre-assigned threshold value, the event will be flagged. Based on MATLAB platform and domestic appliances simulations, the results of tested data and verified algorithm indicate that the power method has accomplished desired results of appliance identification.

Background compensation for a radiation level monitor

Science.gov (United States)

Keefe, D.J.

1975-12-01

Background compensation in a device such as a hand and foot monitor is provided by digital means using a scaler. With no radiation level test initiated, a scaler is down-counted from zero according to the background measured. With a radiation level test initiated, the scaler is up-counted from the previous down-count position according to the radiation emitted from the monitored object and an alarm is generated if, with the scaler having crossed zero in the positive going direction, a particular number is exceeded in a specific time period after initiation of the test. If the test is initiated while the scale is down-counting, the background count from the previous down- count stored in a memory is used as the initial starting point for the up-count.

System for remote routine monitoring of power equipment at TPP and NPP

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kantsedalov, V.G.; Samojlenko, V.P.; Doroshenko, V.A.

1988-01-01

A system for remote routine monitoring of TPP and NPP pipeline metals is described. The principal functional unit of the system is the unit of remote routine methods and techniques for studying and monitoring the metal and properties. The system is equipped with 5 types of routine monitoring equipment: robots, remote aggregated complexes, periodical diagnostic monitors, other means of metal diagnostics (endoscopes, introscopes). All current information enters the unit for estimating and forecasting the service life of power unit, where it is compared with the standard indices of reliability, duravility and efficiency. The system considered permits to reduce significantly or minimize the scope of works on metal monitoring during overhauls, increase intermonitoring and interrepairing compaigns to 8 years

77 FR 24228 - Condition Monitoring Techniques for Electric Cables Used in Nuclear Power Plants

Science.gov (United States)

2012-04-23

... Used in Nuclear Power Plants AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Regulatory guide; issuance... guide, (RG) 1.218, ``Condition Monitoring Techniques for Electric Cables Used in Nuclear Power Plants... of electric cables for nuclear power plants. RG 1.218 is not intended to be prescriptive, instead it...

Radioactivity level of airplane to Guangzhou Baiyun international airport during the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Song Haiqing; Chen Wentao; Cheng Xiaobo; Liao Tong; Deng Fei; Chen Fuliang; Zhang Yanjin; Li Lingjuan; Liang Guiyuan; Wu Guibiao

2014-01-01

The radioactivity level of airplanes to Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (GBIAC) during the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident was monitored by Guangdong Environmental Radiation Monitoring Center (GERC) on March 15 and 16, 2011. The artificial radionuclide "1"3"1I, "1"3"4Cs, "1"3"7Cs, "l"3"6Cs, "1"3"2I, "1"3"2Te were detected in the wipe samples of the outer surface of airplanes from Japan to GBIAC. The radioactivity ration of "1"3"7Cs/"1"3"4Cs was calculated as (1.12 ± 0.06) in the wipe samples, which similar to the result in the wipe sample of the outer surface of airplanes from Japan to Hangzhou airport obtained by Zhejiang Province Environmental Radiation Monitoring Center (l.lO ± 0.08), but slightly higher than results in the aerosol monitoring at Guangzhou (0.99 ± 0.30) and Shenzhen (0.94 ± 0.30) by GERC, the data (0.83) published by Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) and the result (1.00 ± 0.13) measured by Tokyo Electric Power Company. A slight radioactive contamination was detected on the surface of outer airplanes and internal cabin. The practice suggested that the wipe sample of the outer surface of airplane was a fast , simple and sensitive approach for emergency monitoring of radioactive contamination. (authors)

Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory environmental monitoring report, calendar year 1999

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

None

2000-12-01

The results of the effluent and environmental monitoring programs at the three Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) Sites are summarized and assessed in this report. Operations at the three KAPL Sites [Knolls Site, Niskayuna, New York; Kesselring Site, West Milton, New York; S1C Site, Windsor, Connecticut] during calendar year 1999 resulted in no significant release of hazardous substances or radioactivity to the environment. The effluent and environmental monitoring programs conducted by KAPL are designed to determine the effectiveness of treatment and control methods, to provide measurement of the concentrations in effluents for comparison with applicable standards, and to assess resultant concentrations in the environment. The monitoring programs include analyses of samples of liquid and gaseous effluents for chemical constituents and radioactivity as well as monitoring of environmental air, water, sediment, and fish. Radiation measurements are also made around the perimeter of each Site and at off-site background locations.

Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory environmental monitoring report, calendar year 1999

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2000-01-01

The results of the effluent and environmental monitoring programs at the three Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) Sites are summarized and assessed in this report. Operations at the three KAPL Sites [Knolls Site, Niskayuna, New York; Kesselring Site, West Milton, New York; S1C Site, Windsor, Connecticut] during calendar year 1999 resulted in no significant release of hazardous substances or radioactivity to the environment. The effluent and environmental monitoring programs conducted by KAPL are designed to determine the effectiveness of treatment and control methods, to provide measurement of the concentrations in effluents for comparison with applicable standards, and to assess resultant concentrations in the environment. The monitoring programs include analyses of samples of liquid and gaseous effluents for chemical constituents and radioactivity as well as monitoring of environmental air, water, sediment, and fish. Radiation measurements are also made around the perimeter of each Site and at off-site background locations

Econometric models of power prices. An approach to market monitoring in the Western US

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barmack, Matthew; Kahn, Edward; Tierney, Susan; Goldman, Charles

2008-01-01

Given the limitations of data and resources available for market monitoring in electricity markets where regional transmission organizations (RTO) do not exist, we argue that econometric models of power prices could provide a useful screening tool for market monitoring. To explore its feasibility, we developed several econometric models of power prices at two major trading hubs in the West: Palo Verde and Mid-Columbia. We show that our models explain a large portion of the variation in power prices in Palo Verde and can establish a benchmark that can be used to identify outlier prices that are potentially the result of anti-competitive behavior. (author)

Level 1 shutdown and low power operation of Mochovce NPP, Unit 1, Slovakia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Halada, P.; Cillik, I.; Stojka, T.; Kuzma, M.; Prochaska, J.; Vrtik, L.

2004-01-01

The paper presents general approach, used methods and form of documentation of the results that have been applied within the shutdown and low power PSA (SPSA) study for Mochovce NPP, Unit 1, Slovakia. The SPSA project was realized by VUJE Trnava Inc., Slovakia in 2001-2002 years. The Level 1 SPSA study for Mochovce NPP Unit 1 covers internal events as well as internal (fires, floods and heavy load drop) and external (aircraft crash, extreme meteorological conditions, seismic event and influence of surrounding industry) hazards. Mochovce NPP consists of two operating units equipped with VVER 440/V213 reactors safety upgraded before construction finishing and operation start. 87 safety measures based on VVER 440 operational experience and international mission insights were implemented to enhance its operational and nuclear safety. The SPSA relates to full power PSA (FPSA) as a continuation of the effort to create a harmonized level 1 PSA model for all operational modes of the plant with the goal to use it for further purposes as follows: Real Time Risk Monitor, Maintenance Optimization, Technical Specifications Optimization, Living PSA. (author)

Meteorological monitoring Program in the location to the Juragua Nuclear Power Plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Linares Gonzalez, M.E.; Ramos Biltres, E.O.; Prendes Alonso, M.

1998-01-01

The objective gives the work it is to present the meteorological Monitoring program in the Juragua nuclear power plant, which you makes according to the standards settled down by the OIEA, the standards give the World meteorological organization and the demands to the content and elaboration gives the Nuclear Power Plant security documents DTN-1.03.91

Real-Time Monitoring System for a Utility-Scale Photovoltaic Power Plant.

Science.gov (United States)

Moreno-Garcia, Isabel M; Palacios-Garcia, Emilio J; Pallares-Lopez, Victor; Santiago, Isabel; Gonzalez-Redondo, Miguel J; Varo-Martinez, Marta; Real-Calvo, Rafael J

2016-05-26

There is, at present, considerable interest in the storage and dispatchability of photovoltaic (PV) energy, together with the need to manage power flows in real-time. This paper presents a new system, PV-on time, which has been developed to supervise the operating mode of a Grid-Connected Utility-Scale PV Power Plant in order to ensure the reliability and continuity of its supply. This system presents an architecture of acquisition devices, including wireless sensors distributed around the plant, which measure the required information. It is also equipped with a high-precision protocol for synchronizing all data acquisition equipment, something that is necessary for correctly establishing relationships among events in the plant. Moreover, a system for monitoring and supervising all of the distributed devices, as well as for the real-time treatment of all the registered information, is presented. Performances were analyzed in a 400 kW transformation center belonging to a 6.1 MW Utility-Scale PV Power Plant. In addition to monitoring the performance of all of the PV plant's components and detecting any failures or deviations in production, this system enables users to control the power quality of the signal injected and the influence of the installation on the distribution grid.

Real-Time Monitoring System for a Utility-Scale Photovoltaic Power Plant

Science.gov (United States)

Moreno-Garcia, Isabel M.; Palacios-Garcia, Emilio J.; Pallares-Lopez, Victor; Santiago, Isabel; Gonzalez-Redondo, Miguel J.; Varo-Martinez, Marta; Real-Calvo, Rafael J.

2016-01-01

There is, at present, considerable interest in the storage and dispatchability of photovoltaic (PV) energy, together with the need to manage power flows in real-time. This paper presents a new system, PV-on time, which has been developed to supervise the operating mode of a Grid-Connected Utility-Scale PV Power Plant in order to ensure the reliability and continuity of its supply. This system presents an architecture of acquisition devices, including wireless sensors distributed around the plant, which measure the required information. It is also equipped with a high-precision protocol for synchronizing all data acquisition equipment, something that is necessary for correctly establishing relationships among events in the plant. Moreover, a system for monitoring and supervising all of the distributed devices, as well as for the real-time treatment of all the registered information, is presented. Performances were analyzed in a 400 kW transformation center belonging to a 6.1 MW Utility-Scale PV Power Plant. In addition to monitoring the performance of all of the PV plant’s components and detecting any failures or deviations in production, this system enables users to control the power quality of the signal injected and the influence of the installation on the distribution grid. PMID:27240365

Real-Time Monitoring System for a Utility-Scale Photovoltaic Power Plant

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Isabel M. Moreno-Garcia

2016-05-01

Full Text Available There is, at present, considerable interest in the storage and dispatchability of photovoltaic (PV energy, together with the need to manage power flows in real-time. This paper presents a new system, PV-on time, which has been developed to supervise the operating mode of a Grid-Connected Utility-Scale PV Power Plant in order to ensure the reliability and continuity of its supply. This system presents an architecture of acquisition devices, including wireless sensors distributed around the plant, which measure the required information. It is also equipped with a high-precision protocol for synchronizing all data acquisition equipment, something that is necessary for correctly establishing relationships among events in the plant. Moreover, a system for monitoring and supervising all of the distributed devices, as well as for the real-time treatment of all the registered information, is presented. Performances were analyzed in a 400 kW transformation center belonging to a 6.1 MW Utility-Scale PV Power Plant. In addition to monitoring the performance of all of the PV plant’s components and detecting any failures or deviations in production, this system enables users to control the power quality of the signal injected and the influence of the installation on the distribution grid.

Multi-level Simulation of a Real Time Vibration Monitoring System Component

Science.gov (United States)

Robertson, Bryan A.; Wilkerson, Delisa

2005-01-01

This paper describes the development of a custom built Digital Signal Processing (DSP) printed circuit board designed to implement the Advanced Real Time Vibration Monitoring Subsystem proposed by Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Transportation Directorate in 2000 for the Space Shuttle Main Engine Advanced Health Management System (AHMS). This Real Time Vibration Monitoring System (RTVMS) is being developed for ground use as part of the AHMS Health Management Computer-Integrated Rack Assembly (HMC-IRA). The HMC-IRA RTVMS design contains five DSPs which are highly interconnected through individual communication ports, shared memory, and a unique communication router that allows all the DSPs to receive digitized data fiom two multi-channel analog boards simultaneously. This paper will briefly cover the overall board design but will focus primarily on the state-of-the-art simulation environment within which this board was developed. This 16-layer board with over 1800 components and an additional mezzanine card has been an extremely challenging design. Utilization of a Mentor Graphics simulation environment provided the unique board and system level simulation capability to ascertain any timing or functional concerns before production. By combining VHDL, Synopsys Software and Hardware Models, and the Mentor Design Capture Environment, multiple simulations were developed to verify the RTVMS design. This multi-level simulation allowed the designers to achieve complete operability without error the first time the RTVMS printed circuit board was powered. The HMC-IRA design has completed all engineering and deliverable unit testing. P

Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory environmental monitoring report, calendar year 2000

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2001-01-01

The results of the effluent and environmental monitoring programs at the three Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) Sites are summarized and assessed in this report. Operations at the Knolls Site, Niskayuna, New York and the Kesselring Site, West Milton, New York and site closure activities at the S1C Site, Windsor, Connecticut, continued to have no adverse effect on human health and the quality of the environment during calendar year 2000. The effluent and environmental monitoring programs conducted by KAPL are designed to determine the effectiveness of treatment and control methods, to provide measurement of the concentrations in effluents for comparison with applicable standards, and to assess resultant concentrations in the environment. The monitoring programs include analyses of samples of liquid and gaseous effluents for chemical constituents and radioactivity as well as monitoring of environmental air, water, sediment, and fish. Radiation measurements are also made around the perimeter of each Site and at off-site background locations. Monitoring programs at the S1C Site were reduced in scope during calendar year 2000 due to completion of site dismantlement activities during 1999

Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory environmental monitoring report, calendar year 2000

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

None

2001-12-01

The results of the effluent and environmental monitoring programs at the three Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) Sites are summarized and assessed in this report. Operations at the Knolls Site, Niskayuna, New York and the Kesselring Site, West Milton, New York and site closure activities at the S1C Site, Windsor, Connecticut, continued to have no adverse effect on human health and the quality of the environment during calendar year 2000. The effluent and environmental monitoring programs conducted by KAPL are designed to determine the effectiveness of treatment and control methods, to provide measurement of the concentrations in effluents for comparison with applicable standards, and to assess resultant concentrations in the environment. The monitoring programs include analyses of samples of liquid and gaseous effluents for chemical constituents and radioactivity as well as monitoring of environmental air, water, sediment, and fish. Radiation measurements are also made around the perimeter of each Site and at off-site background locations. Monitoring programs at the S1C Site were reduced in scope during calendar year 2000 due to completion of site dismantlement activities during 1999.

MONITORING DISASTER-RELATED POWER OUTAGES USING NASA BLACK MARBLE NIGHTTIME LIGHT PRODUCT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Z. Wang

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Timely and accurate monitoring of disruptions to the electricity grid, including the magnitude, spatial extent, timing, and duration of net power losses, is needed to improve situational awareness of disaster response and long-term recovery efforts. Satellite-derived Nighttime Lights (NTL provide an indication of human activity patterns and have been successfully used to monitor disaster-related power outages. The global 500 m spatial resolution National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA Black Marble NTL daily standard product suite (VNP46 is generated from Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS Day/Night Band (DNB onboard the NASA/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi- NPP satellite, which began operations on 19 January 2012. With its improvements in product accuracy (including critical atmospheric and BRDF correction routines, the VIIRS daily Black Mable product enables systematic monitoring of outage conditions across all stages of the disaster management cycle.

Design and fabrication of self-powered in-core neutron flux monitor assembly

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chung, M.K.; Cho, S.W.; Kang, H.D.; Cho, K.K.; Cho, B.S.; Kang, S.S.

1980-01-01

This is the final report on the prototypical fabrication of an in-core neutron flux monitor detector assembly for a specific power reactor conducted by KAERI from July 1, 1978 to December 31, 1979. It is well known that power reactors require a large number of in-core neutron flux detector for reactor regulation and the structures of detector assemblies are different from reactor to reactor. Therefore, from the nature of this project, it should be noted here that the target model of the prototypical farbrication of an in-core neutron flux monitor detector assembly is a VFD-2 System for Wolsung CANDU. It is concluded that fabrication of in-core neutron flux monitor detector assembly for CANDU reactor is technically feasible and will bring economical benefit as much as 50 % of the unit price if they are fabricated in Korea by using partially materials which are available from local market. (author)

Real-time stability monitoring method for boiling water reactor nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fukunishi, K.; Suzuki, S.

1987-01-01

A method for real-time stability monitoring is developed for supervising the steady-state operation of a boiling water reactor core. The decay ratio of the reactor power fluctuation is determined by measuring only the output neutron noise. The concept of an inverse system is introduced to identify the dynamic characteristics of the reactor core. The adoption of an adaptive digital filter is useful in real-time identification. A feasibility test that used measured output noise as an indication of reactor power suggests that this method is useful in a real-time stability monitoring system. Using this method, the tedious and difficult work for modeling reactor core dynamics can be reduced. The method employs a simple algorithm that eliminates the need for stochastic computation, thus making the method suitable for real-time computation with a simple microprocessor. In addition, there is no need to disturb the reactor core during operation. Real-time stability monitoring using the proposed algorithm may allow operation under less stable margins

Development of advanced secondary chemistry monitoring system for Korea nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Sang Hak; Kim, Chung Tae

1997-01-01

Water chemistry control is one of the most important tasks in order to maintain the reliability of plant equipments and extend the operating life of the plant. KEPCO and KOPEC developed a computerized tool for this purpose -ASCMS (advanced secondary chemistry monitoring system) which is able to monitor and diagnose the secondary water chemistry. A prototype system had been installed at KORI 3 nuclear power plant since April 1993 in order to evaluate the system performance. After the implementation of enhancements identified during the testing of the prototype, we have developed the advanced secondary monitoring system, ASCMS which is installed at 5 nuclear power plants and has been under operations since April 1997. The ASCMS comprises PC subsystem designed for data acquisition, data analysis, and data diagnosis. The ASCMS will provide overall information related to steam generator secondary side water chemistry problems and improve plant availability, reduce radiation exposure to workers, and reduce operating and maintenance costs. 6 figs

Vibration monitoring of pressure vessel in Atucha-1 power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Belinco, C.; Pastorini, A.; Martin Ghiselli, A.; Sacchi, M.

1994-01-01

The Vibration Monitoring Systems are described to obtain information about the mechanical state of different components in the main coolant system of nuclear power plants to ensure that changes in the mechanical integrity of this components are detected at an early point in time, even during operation. 9 figs

Efficient diagnostic methods for nuclear power plant monitoring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sunder, R.

1997-01-01

There are systems for operational monitoring of vibrations, valves, solid-borne sound, leaks, and embrittlement. The paper focuses on vibration monitoring of pressurized components and systems in PWRs and BWRs. Other than with conventional systems, the task is not to globally monitor the vibration level, but the frequency-selective information is used as a sensitive information source, the level of vibrations being of secondary significance. The essential feature therefore is the comprehensive and selective scanning of individual frequency components in the recorded vibration spectra, which in some cases can be less than a millesimal millimeter. Upon identification of the various vibration components - from so-called baseline analyses using correlation methods - vibration analysis is done by only one step, comparing a defined reference state with the actual vibration state of the monitored system component. In the event of detected deviations, information on the causes of vibrations - essentially component-related structural resonances - will give the relevant cause-effect relationship. The paper uses some practical examples to illustrate that reliable diagnoses are achieved by the above-mentioned frequency-selective technique. It is important, however, to carry out a sufficiently reliable statistical verification of diagnostic data by means of vibration trending. This is ensured with the digital systems and their high data acquisition rates. (orig./CB) [de

Automation of technical specification monitoring for nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lin, J.C.; Abbott, E.C.; Hubbard, F.R.

1986-01-01

The complexity of today's nuclear power plants combined with an equally detailed regulatory process makes it necessary for the plant staff to have access to an automated system capable of monitoring the status of limiting conditions for operation (LCO). Pickard, Lowe and Garrick, Inc. (PLG), has developed the first of such a system, called Limiting Conditions for Operation Monitor (LIMCOM). LIMCOM provides members of the operating staff with an up-to-date comparison of currently operable equipment and plant operating conditions with what is required in the technical specifications. LIMCOM also provides an effective method of screening tagout requests by evaluating their impact on the LCOs. Finally, LIMCOM provides an accurate method of tracking and scheduling routine surveillance. (author)

Sea level hazards: Altimetric monitoring of tsunamis and sea level rise

Science.gov (United States)

Hamlington, Benjamin Dillon

Whether on the short timescale of an impending tsunami or the much longer timescale of climate change-driven sea level rise, the threat stemming from rising and inundating ocean waters is a great concern to coastal populations. Timely and accurate observations of potentially dangerous changes in sea level are vital in determining the precautionary steps that need to be taken in order to protect coastal communities. While instruments from the past have provided in situ measurements of sea level at specific locations across the globe, satellites can be used to provide improved spatial and temporal sampling of the ocean in addition to producing more accurate measurements. Since 1993, satellite altimetry has provided accurate measurements of sea surface height (SSH) with near-global coverage. Not only have these measurements led to the first definitive estimates of global mean sea level rise, satellite altimetry observations have also been used to detect tsunami waves in the open ocean where wave amplitudes are relatively small, a vital step in providing early warning to those potentially affected by the impending tsunami. The use of satellite altimetry to monitor two specific sea level hazards is examined in this thesis. The first section will focus on the detection of tsunamis in the open ocean for the purpose of providing early warning to coastal inhabitants. The second section will focus on estimating secular trends using satellite altimetry data with the hope of improving our understanding of future sea level change. Results presented here will show the utility of satellite altimetry for sea level monitoring and will lay the foundation for further advancement in the detection of the two sea level hazards considered.

Nuclear power plant remote monitoring system of Hessen (KFUe Hessen) now fully available

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lettmann, W.; Merkel, M.

1991-01-01

The remote monitoring system for the Biblis nuclear power station has commenced operation in 1990. It is intended to provide the radiological data and other information required by the supervisory Land authority for performing its supervisory functions in accordance with the Atomic Energy Act. The monitoring station records and reports emissions of the reactor station during specified normal operation and as a result of incidents or accidents, measures local dose rates at four measuring stations at the power plant fence, and records the meteorological conditions. The system is explained in detail, including illustration and graphs. (BBR) [de

Radiation monitoring handbook for visits by nuclear powered warships to Australian ports

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Woods, D.A.

1995-09-01

The purpose of this handbook is to detail the Radiation Monitoring (RMG) roles and procedures, and to provide technical and background information useful to RMG personnel. It has been written on the assumption that all members of the RMG have had appropriate radiation safety (Health Physics) training. Separate standing procedures, for both routine and emergency activities, are required for each port. These are incorporated in Port Safety Plans and specify the routine monitoring requirements for individual berths or anchorages and the procedures to be followed after indication of a reactor accident to a nuclear powered warship. A Visit Operation Order, issued for each Nuclear Powered warships (NPW) visit, presents information specific to that visit. Routine monitoring is performed to confirm normal conditions. The objectives of emergency radiation monitoring are: to provide early detection of a reactor accident of sufficient severity to possibly cause a major release of fission products to the environment; to determine the nature and extent of any fission product release; to provide information to assist in evaluating the accident; to assess the need and extent of required countermeasures; and to determine when the release has terminated and when affected areas have returned to normal

A technical system to improve the operational monitoring of the Zaporozh'ye nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Beyer, M.; Carl, H.; Schumann, P.; Seidel, A.; Weiss, F.-P.; Zschau, J.; Nowak, K.

1997-01-01

As part of a programme of cooperation with Central and Eastern European states, a technical system has been established for the Zaporozhe nuclear power plant, which complements existing operational checking and monitoring facilities with modern means of information technology. It makes it possible to continuously monitor the state of the units in normal operation and in cases of anomalies or incidents. The parameters selected for monitoring are listed, and the system of automatic evaluation at the power plant site is described in detail. Test operation of the technical system started in late 1995 and the industrial testing phase in mid-1996. (A.K.)

Pd/Ag coated fiber Bragg grating sensor for hydrogen monitoring in power transformers.

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, G M; Jiang, J; Li, C R; Song, H T; Luo, Y T; Wang, H B

2015-04-01

Compared with conventional DGA (dissolved gas analysis) method for on-line monitoring of power transformers, FBG (fiber Bragg grating) hydrogen sensor represents marked advantages over immunity to electromagnetic field, time-saving, and convenience to defect location. Thus, a novel FBG hydrogen sensor based on Pd/Ag (Palladium/Silver) along with polyimide composite film to measure dissolved hydrogen concentration in large power transformers is proposed in this article. With the help of Pd/Ag composite coating, the enhanced performance on mechanical strength and sensitivity is demonstrated, moreover, the response time and sensitivity influenced by oil temperature are solved by correction lines. Sensitivity measurement and temperature calibration of the specific hydrogen sensor have been done respectively in the lab. And experiment results show a high sensitivity of 0.055 pm/(μl/l) with instant response time about 0.4 h under the typical operating temperature of power transformers, which proves a potential utilization inside power transformers to monitor the health status by detecting the dissolved hydrogen concentration.

Extensive feedwater quality control and monitoring concept for preventing chemistry-related failures of boiler tubes in a subcritical thermal power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vidojkovic, Sonja; Onjia, Antonije; Matovic, Branko; Grahovac, Nebojsa; Maksimovic, Vesna; Nastasovic, Aleksandra

2013-01-01

Prevention and minimizing corrosion processes on steam generating equipment is highly important in the thermal power industry. The maintenance of feedwater quality at a level corresponding to the standards of technological designing, followed by timely respond to the fluctuation of measured parameters, has a decisive role in corrosion prevention. In this study, the comprehensive chemical control of feedwater quality in 210 MW Thermal Power Plant (TPP) was carried out in order to evaluate its potentiality to assure reliable function of the boiler and discover possible irregularity that might be responsible for frequent boiler tube failures. Sensitive on-line and off-line analytical instruments were used for measuring key and diagnostic parameters considered to be crucial for boiler safety and performances. Obtained results provided evidences for exceeded levels of oxygen, silica, sodium, chloride, sulfate, copper, and conductivity what distinctly demonstrated necessity of feedwater control improvement. Consequently, more effective feedwater quality monitoring concept was recommended. In this paper, the explanation of presumable root causes of corrosive contaminants was given including basic directions for their maintenance in proscribed limits. -- Highlights: • Feedwater quality monitoring practice in a thermal power plant has been evaluated. • The more efficient feedwater quality control have been applied. • Analysis of feedwater quality parameters has been performed. • Exceeded levels of corrosive contaminants were found. • Recommendations for their maintenance at proscribed values were given

On-line monitoring applications at nuclear power plants. A risk informed approach to calibration reduction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shankar, Ramesh; Hussey, Aaron; Davis, Eddie

2003-01-01

On-line monitoring of instrument channels provides increased information about the condition of monitored channels through accurate, more frequent evaluation of each cannel's performance over time. This type of performance monitoring is a methodology that offers an alternate approach to traditional time-directed calibration. EPRI's strategic role in on-line monitoring is to facilitate its implementation and cost-effective use in numerous applications at power plants. To this end, EPRI has sponsored an on-line monitoring implementation project at multiple nuclear plants specifically intended to install and use on-line monitoring technology. The selected on-line monitoring method is based on the Multivariate State Estimation Technique. The project has a planned three-year life; seven plants are participating in the project. The goal is to apply on-line monitoring to all types of power plant applications and document all aspects of the implementation process in a series of EPRI reports. These deliverables cover installation, modeling, optimization, and proven cost-benefit. This paper discusses the actual implementation of on-line monitoring to various nuclear plant instrument systems. Examples of detected instrument drift are provided. (author)

Monitor inspection device

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ueshima, Yoshinobu.

1995-01-01

The device of the present invention reliably conducts monitoring by radiation monitors in a nuclear power plant thereby contributing to save the number of radiation operators and reduction of radiation exposure. Namely, radiation monitors continuously measure a plurality of γ-ray levels. A branched simultaneously counting circuit receives these signals. The output of the branched simultaneously counting circuit is inputted to a differentiation means. The differentiation means calculates a variation coefficient for each of the radiation monitoring values, namely, equivalent dose rates, and records and monitors change with time of the equivalent dose rates. With such procedures, the results of the monitoring of γ-ray levels can be judged objectively corresponding to the increase of the equivalent dose rates. As a result, the number of radiation operators can be saves and radiation exposure of the radiation operators can be reduced. (I.S.)

Frequency Monitoring and Control during Power System Restoration Based on Wide Area Measurement System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Saber Nourizadeh

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Frequency control during power system restoration has not been strongly addressed. Operators are often concerned with the offline sizing of load and generation steps, but, nowadays, the introduction of Wide Area Measurement System (WAMS makes it possible to monitor the stability of power system online. The constraints of WAMS operation result in some changes in power system frequency control. This paper proposes a novel methodology for frequency control and monitoring during the early steps of power system restoration based on WAMS. Detailed load modeling is achieved based on the static load modeling approach. Power generators' modeling is also accomplished utilizing the single machine equivalent of the power system based on PMU measurements. Simulation results of the presented methodology on the 39 bus New England power system clearly show the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed method. The simulation results show that the presented approach has a completely acceptable precision and an outstanding speed with less than 0.05% error. The outstanding speed of the presented approach along with the result precision will result in a great promotion in power system restoration methodologies.

Monitoring of radionuclides in the environs of the Finnish nuclear power stations in 1988

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Klemola, S.; Ilus, E.; Sjoeblom, K.L.; Arvela, H.; Blomqvist, L.

1991-03-01

Monitoring of radionuclides around Finnish nuclear power plants continued in 1988 with the regular programmes. About 1000 samples were analysed from both terrestrial and aquatic environments.The dominant artificial radioactive substances in the vicinity of power plants were still the fallout nuclides from the Chernobyl accident, but the concentrations in all the objects monitored are lower than in the previous year. Trace amounts of activation products originating from the airborne releases of local power plants were detected in some air and deposition samples. Discharged nuclides were more abundant in the aquatic environment, especially in samples of indicator organisms. However, their contribution to the radiation doses received by the the public was very small. (orig.)

Nuclear power: levels of safety

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lidsky, L.M.

1988-01-01

The rise and fall of the nuclear power industry in the United States is a well-documented story with enough socio-technological conflict to fill dozens of scholarly, and not so scholarly, books. Whatever the reasons for the situation we are now in, and no matter how we apportion the blame, the ultimate choice of whether to use nuclear power in this country is made by the utilities and by the public. Their choices are, finally, based on some form of risk-benefit analysis. Such analysis is done in well-documented and apparently logical form by the utilities and in a rather more inchoate but not necessarily less accurate form by the public. Nuclear power has failed in the United States because both the real and perceived risks outweigh the potential benefits. The national decision not to rely upon nuclear power in its present form is not an irrational one. A wide ranging public balancing of risk and benefit requires a classification of risk which is clear and believable for the public to be able to assess the risks associated with given technological structures. The qualitative four-level safety ladder provides such a framework. Nuclear reactors have been designed which fit clearly and demonstrably into each of the possible qualitative safety levels. Surprisingly, it appears that safer may also mean cheaper. The intellectual and technical prerequisites are in hand for an important national decision. Deployment of a qualitatively different second generation of nuclear reactors can have important benefits for the United States. Surprisingly, it may well be the nuclear establishment itself, with enormous investments of money and pride in the existing nuclear systems, that rejects second generation reactors. It may be that we will not have a second generation of reactors until the first generation of nuclear engineers and nuclear power advocates has retired

Evaluation of Haddam Neck (Connecticut Yankee) Nuclear Power Plant, environmental impact prediction, based on monitoring programs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gore, K.L.; Thomas, J.M.; Kannberg, L.D.; Mahaffey, J.A.; Waton, D.G.

1976-12-01

A study was undertaken by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to evaluate the nonradiological environmental data obtained from three nuclear power plants operating for a period of one year or longer. The document presented reports the second of three nuclear power plants to be evaluated in detail by Battelle, Pacific Northwest Laboratories. Haddam Neck (Connecticut Yankee) Nuclear Power Plant nonradiological monitoring data were assessed to determine their effectiveness in the measurement of environmental impacts. Efforts were made to determine if: (1) monitoring programs, as designed, can detect environmental impacts, (2) appropriate statistical analyses were performed and if they were sensitive enough to detect impacts, (3) predicted impacts could be verified by monitoring programs, and (4) monitoring programs satisfied the requirements of the Environmental Technical Specifications. Both preoperational and operational monitoring data were examined to test the usefulness of baseline information in evaluating impacts. This included an examination of the methods used to measure ecological, chemical, and physical parameters, and an assessment of sampling periodicity and sensitivity where appropriate data sets were available. From this type of analysis, deficiencies in both preoperational and operational monitoring programs may be identified and provide a basis for suggested improvement

Development of real-time voltage stability monitoring tool for power system transmission network using Synchrophasor data

Science.gov (United States)

Pulok, Md Kamrul Hasan

Intelligent and effective monitoring of power system stability in control centers is one of the key issues in smart grid technology to prevent unwanted power system blackouts. Voltage stability analysis is one of the most important requirements for control center operation in smart grid era. With the advent of Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) or Synchrophasor technology, real time monitoring of voltage stability of power system is now a reality. This work utilizes real-time PMU data to derive a voltage stability index to monitor the voltage stability related contingency situation in power systems. The developed tool uses PMU data to calculate voltage stability index that indicates relative closeness of the instability by producing numerical indices. The IEEE 39 bus, New England power system was modeled and run on a Real-time Digital Simulator that stream PMU data over the Internet using IEEE C37.118 protocol. A Phasor data concentrator (PDC) is setup that receives streaming PMU data and stores them in Microsoft SQL database server. Then the developed voltage stability monitoring (VSM) tool retrieves phasor measurement data from SQL server, performs real-time state estimation of the whole network, calculate voltage stability index, perform real-time ranking of most vulnerable transmission lines, and finally shows all the results in a graphical user interface. All these actions are done in near real-time. Control centers can easily monitor the systems condition by using this tool and can take precautionary actions if needed.

A Novel Method To On-Line Monitor Reactor Nuclear Power And In-Core Thermal Environments

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu, Hanying; Miller, Don W.; Li, Dongxu; Radcliff, Thomas D.

2002-01-01

For current nuclear power plants, nuclear power can not be directly measured and in-core fuel thermal environments can not be monitored due to the unavailability of an appropriate measurement technology and the inaccessibility of the fuel. If the nuclear deposited power and the in-core thermal conditions (i.e. fuel or coolant temperature and heat transfer coefficient) can be monitored in-situ, then it would play a valuable and critical role in increasing nuclear power, predicting abnormal reactor operation, improving core physical models and reducing core thermal margin so as to implement higher fuel burn-up. Furthermore, the management of core thermal margin and fuel operation may be easier during reactor operation, post-accident or spent fuel storage. On the other hand, for some advanced Generation IV reactors, the sealed and long-lived reactor core design challenges traditional measurement techniques while conventional ex-core detectors and current in-core detectors can not monitor details of the in-core fuel conditions. A method is introduced in this paper that responds to the challenge to measure nuclear power and to monitor the in-core thermal environments, for example, local fuel pin or coolant heat convection coefficient and temperature. In summary, the method, which has been designed for online in-core measurement and surveillance, will be beneficial to advanced plant safety, efficiency and economics by decreasing thermal margin or increasing nuclear power. The method was originally developed for a constant temperature power sensor (CTPS). The CTPS is undergoing design and development for an advanced reactor core to measure in-core nuclear power in measurement mode and to monitor thermal environments in compensation mode. The sensor dynamics was analyzed in compensation mode to determine the environmental temperature and the heat transfer coefficient. Previous research demonstrated that a first order dynamic model is not sufficient to simulate sensor

On-Line Condition Monitoring System for High Level Trip Water in Steam Boiler’s Drum

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ismail Alnaimi Firas B.

2014-07-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a monitoring technique using Artificial Neural Networks (ANN with four different training algorithms for high level water in steam boiler’s drum. Four Back-Propagations neural networks multidimensional minimization algorithms have been utilized. Real time data were recorded from power plant located in Malaysia. The developed relevant variables were selected based on a combination of theory, experience and execution phases of the model. The Root Mean Square (RMS Error has been used to compare the results of one and two hidden layer (1HL, (2HL ANN structures

National Environmental Radiation Warning And Monitoring Network And Proposed Radiation Monitoring Programme For The 1st Nuclear Power Plant Ninth Thuan

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vuong Thu Bac

2011-01-01

National Environmental Radiation Warning and Monitoring Network has been gradually setting up based on some of legislative documents which have been issued in recent years. Studies and surveys to build an environmental radiation monitoring program for nuclear power plant (NPP) have also been implemented. This paper aims to introduce National Environmental Radiation Warning and Monitoring Network in Vietnam which has been approved by the government, the draft program for environmental radiation monitoring Ninh Thuan NPP and some initial results of research about environmental radiation in the planning area for building first NPP in Vietnam. (author)

Experimental Study of a Multi Level Overtopping Wave Power Device

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kofoed, Jens Peter; Hald, Tue; Frigaard, Peter Bak

2002-01-01

Results of experimental investigations of a floating wave energy device called Power Pyramid is presented. The Power Pyramid utilizes reservoirs in multiple levels when capturing wave overtopping and converting it into electrical energy. The effect of capturing the overtopping in multiple levels,......, using 5 levels introduces practical problems, and is most probably not economically feasible. It is concluded that it is reasonable to use 2 levels (maybe 3), which can increase the efficiency by 25-40 % compared to using a single level.......Results of experimental investigations of a floating wave energy device called Power Pyramid is presented. The Power Pyramid utilizes reservoirs in multiple levels when capturing wave overtopping and converting it into electrical energy. The effect of capturing the overtopping in multiple levels......, compared to only one level, has been evaluated experimentally. From the experimental results, and the performed optimizations based on these, it has been found that the efficiency of a wave power device of the overtopping type can be increased by as much as 76 % by using 5 levels instead of 1. However...

Evaluation of Millstone Nuclear Power Plant, Environmental Impact prediction, based on monitoring programs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gore, K.L.; Thomas, J.M.; Kannberg, L.D.; Watson, D.G.

1977-02-01

This report evaluates the nonradiological monitoring program at Millstone Nuclear Power Plant. Both operational as well as preoperational monitoring programs were analyzed to produce long-term (5 yr or longer) data sets, where possible. In order to determine the effectiveness of these monitoring programs, the appropriate data sets have to be analyzed by the appropriate statistical analysis. Thus, both open literature and current statistical analysis being developed at Pacific Northwest Laboratories (PNL) were employed in data analysis

Evaluation of Millstone Nuclear Power Plant, Environmental Impact prediction, based on monitoring programs

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gore, K.L.; Thomas, J.M.; Kannberg, L.D.; Watson, D.G.

1977-02-01

This report evaluates the nonradiological monitoring program at Millstone Nuclear Power Plant. Both operational as well as preoperational monitoring programs were analyzed to produce long-term (5 yr or longer) data sets, where possible. In order to determine the effectiveness of these monitoring programs, the appropriate data sets have to be analyzed by the appropriate statistical analysis. Thus, both open literature and current statistical analysis being developed at Pacific Northwest Laboratories (PNL) were employed in data analysis.

GNSS-Reflectometry based water level monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Beckheinrich, Jamila; Schön, Steffen; Beyerle, Georg; Apel, Heiko; Semmling, Maximilian; Wickert, Jens

2013-04-01

Due to climate changing conditions severe changes in the Mekong delta in Vietnam have been recorded in the last years. The goal of the German Vietnamese WISDOM (Water-related Information system for the Sustainable Development Of the Mekong Delta) project is to build an information system to support and assist the decision makers, planners and authorities for an optimized water and land management. One of WISDOM's tasks is the flood monitoring of the Mekong delta. Earth reflected L-band signals from the Global Navigation Satellite System show a high reflectivity on water and ice surfaces or on wet soil so that GNSS-Reflectometry (GNSS-R) could contribute to monitor the water level in the main streams of the Mekong delta complementary to already existing monitoring networks. In principle, two different GNSS-R methods exist: the code- and the phase-based one. As the latter being more accurate, a new generation of GORS (GNSS Occultation, Reflectometry and Scatterometry) JAVAD DELTA GNSS receiver has been developed with the aim to extract precise phase observations. In a two week lasting measurement campaign, the receiver has been tested and several reflection events at the 150-200 m wide Can Tho river in Vietnam have been recorded. To analyze the geometrical impact on the quantity and quality of the reflection traces two different antennas height were tested. To track separately the direct and the reflected signal, two antennas were used. To derive an average height of the water level, for a 15 min observation interval, a phase model has been developed. Combined with the coherent observations, the minimum slope has been calculated based on the Least- Squares method. As cycle slips and outliers will impair the results, a preprocessing of the data has been performed. A cycle slip detection strategy that allows for automatic detection, identification and correction is proposed. To identify outliers, the data snooping method developed by Baarda 1968 is used. In this

Forest Focus Monitoring Database System - Technical Report 2003 Level II Data

OpenAIRE

HIEDERER ROLAND; DURRANT TRACY; GRANKE O.; LAMBOTTE Michel; LORENZ M.; MIGNON B.; OEHMICHEN K.

2007-01-01

Forest Focus (Regulation (EC) No 2152/2003) is a Community scheme for harmonized, broad-based, comprehensive and long-term monitoring of European forest ecosystems. Under this scheme the monitoring of air pollution effects on forests is carried out by participating countries on the basis of the systematic network of observation points (Level I) and of the network of observation plots for intensive and continuous monitoring (Level II). According to Article 15(1) of the Forest Focus Regulat...

Forest Focus Monitoring Database System - Technical Report 2006 Level II Data

OpenAIRE

HIEDERER Roland; DURRANT Tracy; GRANKE Oliver; LAMBOTTE Michel; LORENZ Martin; MIGNON Bertrand

2008-01-01

Forest Focus (Regulation (EC) No 2152/2003) is a Community scheme for harmonized, broadbased, comprehensive and long-term monitoring of European forest ecosystems. Under this scheme the monitoring of air pollution effects on forests is carried out by participating countries on the basis of the systematic network of observation points (Level I) and of the network of observation plots for intensive and continuous monitoring (Level II). According to Article 15(1) of the Forest Focus Regulatio...

Panorama Image Processing for Condition Monitoring with Thermography in Power Plant

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jeon, Byoung Joon; Kim, Tae Hwan; Kim, Soon Geol; Mo, Yoon Syub [UNETWARE, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Won Tae [Kongju National University, Gongju (Korea, Republic of)

2010-04-15

In this paper, imaging processing study obtained from CCD image and thermography image was performed in order to treat easily thermographic data without any risks of personnel who conduct the condition monitoring for the abnormal or failure status occurrable in industrial power plants. This imaging processing is also applicable to the predictive maintenance. For confirming the broad monitoring, a methodology producting single image from the panorama technique was developed no matter how many cameras are employed, including fusion method for discrete configuration for the target. As results, image fusion from quick realtime processing was obtained and it was possible to save time to track the location monitoring in matching the images between CCTV and thermography

Panorama Image Processing for Condition Monitoring with Thermography in Power Plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jeon, Byoung Joon; Kim, Tae Hwan; Kim, Soon Geol; Mo, Yoon Syub; Kim, Won Tae

2010-01-01

In this paper, imaging processing study obtained from CCD image and thermography image was performed in order to treat easily thermographic data without any risks of personnel who conduct the condition monitoring for the abnormal or failure status occurrable in industrial power plants. This imaging processing is also applicable to the predictive maintenance. For confirming the broad monitoring, a methodology producting single image from the panorama technique was developed no matter how many cameras are employed, including fusion method for discrete configuration for the target. As results, image fusion from quick realtime processing was obtained and it was possible to save time to track the location monitoring in matching the images between CCTV and thermography

Radiation monitoring using manned helicopter around the nuclear power station in the fiscal year 2015 (Contract research)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sanada, Yukihisa; Munakata, Masahiro; Mori, Airi; Ishizaki, Azusa; Shimada, Kazumasa; Hirouchi, Jun; Urabe, Yoshimi; Nakanishi, Chika; Yamada, Tsutomu; Iwai, Takeyuki; Matsunaga, Yuki; Toyoda, Masayuki; Tobita, Shinichiro; Nishizawa, Yukiyasu; Ishida, Mutsushi; Sato, Yoshiharu; Sasaki, Miyuki; Hirayama, Hirokatsu; Takamura, Yoshihide; Nishihara, Katsuya; Imura, Mitsuo; Miyamoto, Kenji; Kudo, Tamotsu; Nakayama, Shinichi

2016-10-01

By the nuclear disaster of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (FDNPS), Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), caused by the East Japan earthquake and the following tsunami occurred on March 11, 2011, a large amount of radioactive materials was released from the NPS. After the nuclear disaster, airborne radiation monitoring using manned helicopter was conducted around FDNPS. In addition, background dose rate monitoring was conducted around the Sendai Nuclear Power Station. These results of the aerial radiation monitoring using the manned helicopter in the fiscal 2015 were summarized in the report. In addition, we developed the discrimination technique of the Rn-progenies and the evaluation of radiation attenuation by snow. (author)

Architecture and design of third Qinshan nuclear power plant risk monitor

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wang, F.; Li, Y.; Wang, J.; Wang, J.; Hu, L. [Inst. of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, Anhui, 230031 (China); School of Nuclear Science and Technology, Univ. of Science and Technology of China, No.350 Shushanhu Road, Shushan District, Hefei, Anhui, 230031 (China)

2012-07-01

Risk monitor is a real-time analysis tool to determine the point-in-time risk based on actual plant configuration, which is an important application of PSA (Probabilistic Safety Assessment). In this study the status and development trend of risk monitor were investigated and a risk monitor named TQRM (Third Qinshan nuclear power plant Risk Monitor) was developed. The B/S architecture and the two key computing methods pre-solved and resolving PSA model method adopted in TQRM were introduced. The functions and technical features were also presented. Now TQRM has been on-line for more than one year and used in the operation and maintenance of TQNPP. The experience demonstrates that TQRM's results are accurate and real-time, the architecture is stable, and it could be extended and maintained conveniently for any other Risk-Informed Application. (authors)

Design of tool monitor simulator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yao Yonggang; Deng Changming; Zhang Jia; Meng Dan; Zhang Lu; Wang Zhi'ai; Shen Yang

2011-01-01

It is based on tool monitor in Qinshan Nuclear Power Plant for the object of study, and manufacture a tool monitor simulator. The device is designed to automatically emulate-monitor the contamination level of objects for training students. Once if the tool monitor reports the contamination, the students can handle properly. The brief introduction of main function and system design of the simulator are presented in the paper. (authors)

Fungal levels in houses in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant evacuation zone after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Science.gov (United States)

Shinohara, Naohide; Tokumura, Masahiro; Hashimoto, Kazuhiro; Asano, Katsuyoshi; Kawakami, Yuji

2017-10-01

Residences located within 20 km of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant were evacuated shortly after the Great East Japan Earthquake. The levels of airborne and surface fungi were measured in six houses in the evacuation zone in August 2012 and February 2013. Airborne fungal levels in all of the houses in the summer were higher than the environmental standard levels for residential houses published in Architectural Institute of Japan (>1000 colony-forming units [CFU]/m 3 ). In two houses whose residents rarely returned to visit, fungal levels were extremely high (>52,000 CFU/m 3 ). Although fungal levels in the winter were much lower than those in the summer, they were still higher than environmental standard levels in several houses. Indoor fungal levels were significantly inversely related to the frequency with which residents returned, but they were not correlated with the air exchange rates, temperature, humidity, or radiation levels. Cladosporium spp. and Penicillium spp. were detected in every house. Aspergillus section Circumdati (Aspergillus ochraceus group) was also detected in several houses. These fungi produced ochratoxin A and ochratoxin B, which have nephrotoxic and carcinogenic potential. The present study suggests that further monitoring of fungal levels is necessary in houses in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant evacuation zone, and that some houses may require fungal disinfection. The results suggest that residents' health could be at risk owing to the high levels of airborne fungi and toxic fungi Aspergillus section Circumdati. Therefore, monitoring and decontamination/disinfection of fungi are strongly recommended before residents are allowed to return permanently to their homes. In addition, returning to home with a certain frequency and adequate ventilation are necessary during similar situations, e.g., when residents cannot stay in their homes for a long period, because fungal levels in houses in the Fukushima Daiichi

Reliability analysis of operator's monitoring behavior in digital main control room of nuclear power plants and its application

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang Li; Hu Hong; Li Pengcheng; Jiang Jianjun; Yi Cannan; Chen Qingqing

2015-01-01

In order to build a quantitative model to analyze operators' monitoring behavior reliability of digital main control room of nuclear power plants, based on the analysis of the design characteristics of digital main control room of a nuclear power plant and operator's monitoring behavior, and combining with operators' monitoring behavior process, monitoring behavior reliability was divided into three parts including information transfer reliability among screens, inside-screen information sampling reliability and information detection reliability. Quantitative calculation model of information transfer reliability among screens was established based on Senders's monitoring theory; the inside screen information sampling reliability model was established based on the allocation theory of attention resources; and considering the performance shaping factor causality, a fuzzy Bayesian method was presented to quantify information detection reliability and an example of application was given. The results show that the established model of monitoring behavior reliability gives an objective description for monitoring process, which can quantify the monitoring reliability and overcome the shortcomings of traditional methods. Therefore, it provides theoretical support for operator's monitoring behavior reliability analysis in digital main control room of nuclear power plants and improves the precision of human reliability analysis. (authors)

Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory environmental monitoring report, calendar year 2001

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2002-12-31

The results of the effluent and environmental monitoring programs at the three Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) Sites are summarized and assessed in this report. Operations at the Knolls and Kesselring Sites and Site closure activities at the S1C Site (also known as the KAPL Windsor Site) continue to have no adverse effect on human health and the quality of the environment. The effluent and environmental monitoring programs conducted by KAPL at the Knolls and Kesselring Sites are designed to determine the effectiveness of treatment and control methods, to provide measurement of the concentrations in effluents for comparison with applicable standards, and to assess resultant concentrations in the environment. The monitoring programs include analyses of samples of liquid and gaseous effluents for chemical constituents and radioactivity as well as environmental monitoring of air, water, sediment, and fish. Radiation measurements are also made around the perimeter of the Knolls and Kesselring Sites and at off-site background locations. The environmental monitoring program for the S1C Site continues to be reduced in scope from previous years due to the completion of Site dismantlement activities during 1999 and a return to green field conditions during 2000.

Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory environmental monitoring report, calendar year 2001

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2002-01-01

The results of the effluent and environmental monitoring programs at the three Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) Sites are summarized and assessed in this report. Operations at the Knolls and Kesselring Sites and Site closure activities at the S1C Site (also known as the KAPL Windsor Site) continue to have no adverse effect on human health and the quality of the environment. The effluent and environmental monitoring programs conducted by KAPL at the Knolls and Kesselring Sites are designed to determine the effectiveness of treatment and control methods, to provide measurement of the concentrations in effluents for comparison with applicable standards, and to assess resultant concentrations in the environment. The monitoring programs include analyses of samples of liquid and gaseous effluents for chemical constituents and radioactivity as well as environmental monitoring of air, water, sediment, and fish. Radiation measurements are also made around the perimeter of the Knolls and Kesselring Sites and at off-site background locations. The environmental monitoring program for the S1C Site continues to be reduced in scope from previous years due to the completion of Site dismantlement activities during 1999 and a return to green field conditions during 2000

Radiation monitoring handbook for visits by nuclear powered warships to Australian ports

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Woods, D.A

1995-09-01

The purpose of this handbook is to detail the Radiation Monitoring (RMG) roles and procedures, and to provide technical and background information useful to RMG personnel. It has been written on the assumption that all members of the RMG have had appropriate radiation safety (Health Physics) training. Separate standing procedures, for both routine and emergency activities, are required for each port. These are incorporated in Port Safety Plans and specify the routine monitoring requirements for individual berths or anchorages and the procedures to be followed after indication of a reactor accident to a nuclear powered warship. A Visit Operation Order, issued for each Nuclear Powered warships (NPW) visit, presents information specific to that visit. Routine monitoring is performed to confirm normal conditions. The objectives of emergency radiation monitoring are: to provide early detection of a reactor accident of sufficient severity to possibly cause a major release of fission products to the environment; to determine the nature and extent of any fission product release; to provide information to assist in evaluating the accident; to assess the need and extent of required countermeasures; and to determine when the release has terminated and when affected areas have returned to normal Prepared on behalf of the Visiting Ship Panel (Nuclear), Department of Defence; 11 refs., 11 tabs., 21 figs.

Groundwater Level Monitoring using Levelogger and the Importance of Long-Term Groundwater Level Data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nazran Harun; Ahmad Hasnulhadi Che Kamaruddin

2016-01-01

This review paper is focused on groundwater level monitoring using levelogger and the importance of long-term groundwater level data. The levelogger provides an inexpensive and convenient method to measure level, temperature and conductivity all in one probe. It can provide real time view as data is being recorded by the connected data logger. Water-level measurements from observation wells are the principal source of information about the hydrologic stresses acting on aquifers and how these stresses affect ground-water recharge, storage, and discharge. Long-term and systematic measurements of water levels provide essential data needed to evaluate changes in the resource over time to develop ground-water models, forecast trends and monitor the effectiveness of groundwater management. A significant advantage of this method of data collection and reporting are the groundwater level data can be updated real time. The accessibility of water level data is greatly enhanced by the Geographic Information System (GIS) to visually illustrate the locations of observation wells relative to relevant topographic, geologic, or hydrologic features. GIS and internet greatly enhance the capability for retrieval and transmittal of water-level data to potential users. (author)

Development of a component centered fault monitoring and diagnosis knowledge based system for space power system

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, S. C.; Lollar, Louis F.

1988-01-01

The overall approach currently being taken in the development of AMPERES (Autonomously Managed Power System Extendable Real-time Expert System), a knowledge-based expert system for fault monitoring and diagnosis of space power systems, is discussed. The system architecture, knowledge representation, and fault monitoring and diagnosis strategy are examined. A 'component-centered' approach developed in this project is described. Critical issues requiring further study are identified.

Groundwater level monitoring sampling and analysis plan for environmental monitoring in Waste Area Grouping 6 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1994-04-01

This Sampling and Analysis Plan addresses groundwater level monitoring activities that will be conducted in support of the Environmental Monitoring Plan for Waste Area Grouping (WAG) 6. WAG 6 is a shallow-burial land disposal facility for low-level radioactive waste at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a research facility owned by the US Department of Energy and managed by Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc. Groundwater level monitoring will be conducted at 129 sites within the WAG. All of the sites will be manually monitored on a semiannual basis. Forty-five of the 128 wells, plus one site in White Oak Lake, will also be equipped with automatic water level monitoring equipment. The 46 sites are divided into three groups. One group will be equipped for continuous monitoring of water level, conductivity, and temperature. The other two groups will be equipped for continuous monitoring of water level only. The equipment will be rotated between the two groups. The data collected from the water level monitoring will be used to support determination of the contaminant flux at WAG 6.

Groundwater level monitoring sampling and analysis plan for environmental monitoring in Waste Area Grouping 6 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1994-04-01

This Sampling and Analysis Plan addresses groundwater level monitoring activities that will be conducted in support of the Environmental Monitoring Plan for Waste Area Grouping (WAG) 6. WAG 6 is a shallow-burial land disposal facility for low-level radioactive waste at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a research facility owned by the US Department of Energy and managed by Martin Marietta Energy Systems, Inc. Groundwater level monitoring will be conducted at 129 sites within the WAG. All of the sites will be manually monitored on a semiannual basis. Forty-five of the 128 wells, plus one site in White Oak Lake, will also be equipped with automatic water level monitoring equipment. The 46 sites are divided into three groups. One group will be equipped for continuous monitoring of water level, conductivity, and temperature. The other two groups will be equipped for continuous monitoring of water level only. The equipment will be rotated between the two groups. The data collected from the water level monitoring will be used to support determination of the contaminant flux at WAG 6

Design of dynamic power quality monitoring and fault diagnosis system of ship-power system based on Ethernet

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

HU Hongqian

2018-02-01

Full Text Available [Objectives] According to situation that the ship power information exchange system based on the traditional field bus has been unable to meet the needs of modern ship power system for informatization, automation, intelligent and safe operation. [Methods] This paper proposes the use of industrial Ethernet Modbus/TCP to make up for lack of field-bus. Then, the data center is established by collecting the inherent data of the field bus of the combined ship power system and collecting the real-time data from the online measurement device based on the Modbus/TCP. Correlation theory and neural network intelligent algorithm are used to analyze big data to complete the dynamic power quality monitoring and fault diagnosis of ship power system. [Results] Finally, the man-machine interface is designed with LabVIEW. [Conclusions] The feasibility of the software and hardware implementation of the scheme is verified by the laboratory platform.

High-power fiber optic cable with integrated active sensors for live process monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Blomster, Ola; Blomqvist, Mats; Bergstrand, Hans; Pålsson, Magnus

2012-03-01

In industrial applications using high-brilliance lasers at power levels up to and exceeding 20 kW and similarly direct diode lasers of 10 kW, there is an increasing demand to continuously monitor component status even in passive components such as fiber-optic cables. With fiber-optic cables designed according to the European Automotive Industry fiber standard interface there is room for integrating active sensors inside the connectors. In this paper we present the integrated active sensors in the new Optoskand QD fiber-optic cable designed to handle extreme levels of power losses, and how these sensors can be employed in industrial manufacturing. The sensors include photo diodes for detection of scattered light inside the fiber connector, absolute temperature of the fiber connector, difference in temperature of incoming and outgoing cooling water, and humidity measurement inside the fiber connector. All these sensors are connected to the fiber interlock system, where interlock break enable functions can be activated when measured signals are higher than threshold levels. It is a very fast interlock break system as the control of the signals is integrated in the electronics inside the fiber connector. Also, since all signals can be logged it is possible to evaluate what happened inside the connector before the interlock break instance. The communication to the fiber-optic connectors is via a CAN interface. Thus it is straightforward to develop the existing laser host control to also control the CAN-messages from the QD sensors.

A methodology for on-line fatigue life monitoring of Indian nuclear power plant components

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mukhopadhyay, N.K.; Dutta, B.K.; Kushawaha, H.S.

1992-01-01

Fatigue is one of the most important aging effects of nuclear power plant components. Information about accumulation of fatigue helps in assessing structural degradation of the components. This assists in-service inspection and maintenance and may also support future life extension program of a plant. In the present report a methodology is being proposed for monitoring on line fatigue life of nuclear power plant components using available plant instrumentations. Major factors affecting fatigue life of a nuclear power plant components are the fluctuations of temperature, pressure and flow rate. Green's function technique is used in on line fatigue monitoring as computation time is much less than finite element method. A code has been developed which computes temperature and stress Green's functions in 2-D and axisymmetric structure by finite element method due to unit change in various fluid parameters. A post processor has also been developed which computes the temperature and stress responses using corresponding Green's functions and actual fluctuation in fluid parameters. In this post processor, the multiple site problem is solved by superimposing single site Green's function technique. It is also shown that Green's function technique is best suited for on line fatigue life monitoring of nuclear power plant components. (author). 6 refs., 43 figs

Identifications and Monitoring of Power System Dynamics Based on the PMUs and Wavelet Technique

OpenAIRE

Samir Avdakovic; Amir Nuhanovic

2010-01-01

Low frequency power oscillations may be triggered by many events in the system. Most oscillations are damped by the system, but undamped oscillations can lead to system collapse. Oscillations develop as a result of rotor acceleration/deceleration following a change in active power transfer from a generator. Like the operations limits, the monitoring of power system oscillating modes is a relevant aspect of power system operation and control. Unprevented low-frequency powe...

Information-Quality based LV-Grid-Monitoring Framework and its Application to Power-Quality Control

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Findrik, Mislav; Kristensen, Thomas le Fevre; Hinterhofer, Thomas

2015-01-01

The integration of unpredictable renewable energy sources into the low voltage (LV) power grid results in new challenges when it comes to ensuring power quality in the electrical grid. Addressing this problem requires control of not only the secondary substation but also control of flexible assets...... inside the LV grid. In this paper we investigate how the flexibility information of such assets can be accessed by the controller using heterogeneous off-the-shelf communication networks. To achieve this we develop an adaptive monitoring framework, through which the controller can subscribe to the assets......' flexibility information through an API. We define an information quality metric making the monitoring framework able to adapt information access strategies to ensure the information is made available to the controller with the highest possible information quality. To evaluate the monitoring framework...

Assessment of environmental gamma radiation levels in the environs of Narora Atomic Power Station (NAPS)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shetty, P.G.; Takale, R.A.; Swarnkar, M.; Sahu, S.K.; Pandit, G.G.; Puranik, V.D.

2011-01-01

As a part of the assessment of the environmental impact of the Indian nuclear power programme, radiation surveys are being carried out on continuous basis in the environs of all the nuclear facilities in India using Thermoluminescent Dosimeters. This paper discusses the environmental gamma radiation levels based on the analysis of data generated for year 1989-2009 at twenty-eight locations currently being monitored in and around the environs of NAPS using passive dosimeter. Of these, six are within the exclusion zone (1.6 km) while the remaining twenty two locations are spread over an aerial distance of twenty six km from reactor stack. The annual background gamma levels for NAPS site beyond 1.6 km exclusion zone based on twenty-two monitoring locations are evaluated and seen to be 1.20 ± 0.15 mGy/a. This is comparable with earlier reported pre-operational value 1.24 ± 0.26 mGy/a. From this it can be said that the reactor operations have not contributed to any increase in the gamma radiation levels in the environs of the NAPS region. (author)

Simulation Based Data Reconciliation for Monitoring Power Plant Efficiency

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Park, Sang Jun; Heo, Gyun Young

2010-01-01

Power plant efficiency is analyzed by using measured values, mass/energy balance principles, and several correlations. Since the measured values can have uncertainty depending on the accuracy of instrumentation, the results of plant efficiency should definitely have uncertainty. The certainty may occur due to either the randomness or the malfunctions of a process. In order to improve the accuracy of efficiency analysis, the data reconciliation (DR) is expected as a good candidate because the mathematical algorithm of the DR is based on the first principles such as mass and energy balance considering the uncertainty of instrumentation. It should be noted that the mass and energy balance model for analyzing power plant efficiency is equivalent to a steady-state simulation of a plant system. Therefore the DR for efficiency analysis necessitates the simulation which can deal with the uncertainty of instrumentation. This study will propose the algorithm of the simulation based DR which is applicable to power plant efficiency monitoring

Indicators for monitoring of safety operation and condition of nuclear power stations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Manova, D.

2001-01-01

A common goal of all employees in the nuclear power field is safety operation of nuclear power stations. The evaluation and control of NPP safety operation are a part of the elements of safety management. The present report is related only to a part of the total assessment and control of the plant safety operation, namely - the indicator system for monitoring of Kozloduy NPP operation and condition. (author)

Monitoring the radioactivity in the secondary systems of a nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Labno, L.

1979-01-01

The direct water/steam circuit and the waste water and exhaust air systems of a nuclear power plant with boiling water reactor are slightly contaminated with radioactive nuclides during normal operation. In addition some auxiliary and subsidiary systems may show evidence of radioactivity as a result of leakages between the systems. These radioactive substances and those which are discharged to the environment in exhaust air or waste water - although present in quantities far below the admissible limits - still require supervision by a comprehensive activity monitoring system. The article sets out the concept and the technical solution adopted for the activity monitoring system for the secondary section of a nuclear power station. The system is so designed that it provides the information and performs the safety functions important for highly reliable plant operation. Particular importance has been attached to the reliability and dependability of the system, so that incorrect interpretations or reports, such as have been experienced, for example, in the nuclear power plants 'Brunsbuettel' (Federal Republic of Germany) and 'Three Mile Island', near Harrisburg (USA), will not be repeated. (Auth.)

Monitoring systems online of oil for transformers of nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sarandeses, S.

2014-01-01

The nuclear power plants are showing their concern due to the existence of recent failures related to the bulky transformers of power. These transformers are not security, but are important for the production of power as its failure can cause transient on the floor, reactor scram or shooting, that can cause interruptions in the production of energy or might force us to reduce the power of production The analysis of gases dissolved in transformer oil is recognized as a trial key to identify a submerged transformer failure in oil. With this analysis it is not possible to ensure that there is no damage in the transformer, but the probability of risk of this type of failure can be reduced. The industry recommended to equip the new large power transformers with oil online monitoring systems and in some cases also be It recommended its use in existing transformers. (Author)

Power optimization in body sensor networks: the case of an autonomous wireless EMG sensor powered by PV-cells.

Science.gov (United States)

Penders, J; Pop, V; Caballero, L; van de Molengraft, J; van Schaijk, R; Vullers, R; Van Hoof, C

2010-01-01

Recent advances in ultra-low-power circuits and energy harvesters are making self-powered body sensor nodes a reality. Power optimization at the system and application level is crucial in achieving ultra-low-power consumption for the entire system. This paper reviews system-level power optimization techniques, and illustrates their impact on the case of autonomous wireless EMG monitoring. The resulting prototype, an Autonomous wireless EMG sensor power by PV-cells, is presented.

POWER LEVEL EFFECT IN A PWR ROD EJECTION ACCIDENT

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Diamond, D.J.; Bromley, B.P.; Aronson, A.L.

2002-01-01

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of the initial power level during a rod ejection accident (REA) on the ejected rod worth and the resulting energy deposition in the fuel. The model used is for the hot zero power (HZP) conditions at the end of a typical fuel cycle for the Three Mile Island Unit 1 pressurized water reactor. PARCS , a transient, three-dimensional, two-group neutron nodal diffusion code, coupled with its own thermal-hydraulics model, is used to perform both steady-state and transient simulations. The worth of an ejected control rod is affected by both power level, and the positions of control banks. As the power level is increased, the worth of a single central control rod tends to drop due to thermal-hydraulic feedback and control bank removal, both of which flatten the radial neutron flux and power distributions. Although the peak fuel pellet enthalpy rise during an REA will be greater for a given ejected rod worth at elevated initial power levels, it is more likely the HZP condition will cause a greater net energy deposition because an ejected rod will have the highest worth at HZP. Thus, the HZP condition can be considered the most conservative in a safety evaluation

Experience in monitoring ageing phenomena for improving nuclear power plant availability. Proceedings of a specialists' meeting. Working material

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1992-07-01

For more than thirty years nuclear power plants have been supplying electricity to national grids. Today, the nuclear power community is facing great challenges. The safe, reliable operation of existing nuclear power plants (NPPs) must continue to be ensured. From an economic viewpoint, because of the long lead times associated with bringing new plants into service, securing the continued operation of existing plants for their planned lifetimes and possible life extension will be very important in the near term for meeting electrical power demands. The IAEA programmes in nuclear power plant ageing and life extension and in control and instrumentation promote technical information exchange between Member States with new programmes, offers assistance to Member States with an interest in reliability of NPP components, in-service inspection methods and programmes using on-line techniques, component monitoring and special technological topics of nuclear reactors. Significant experience already exists in the nuclear industry in developing and applying the monitoring techniques for different nuclear power plant applications, especially in monitoring of ageing phenomena for improving NPP availability. The purpose of this Specialists' Meeting was to bring together experts from operations, design, research and development and licensing to share their experience in: ageing mechanics of key structural components, methods of monitoring such ageing, tools for cost-effective implementation of the methods and methodologies, life management approaches and examples from current reactors, future direction for monitoring of key structural components in nuclear power plants. The meeting was organized by the IAEA International Working Groups on Life Management of Nuclear Power Plants (IWG-LMNPP) and Nuclear Power Plant Control and Instrumentation (TWG-NPPCI) in co-operation with the Czechoslovak Atomic Energy Commission and Skoda concern. Around 40 participants from 10 countries.

Experience in monitoring ageing phenomena for improving nuclear power plant availability. Proceedings of a specialists' meeting. Working material

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1992-01-01

For more than thirty years nuclear power plants have been supplying electricity to national grids. Today, the nuclear power community is facing great challenges. The safe, reliable operation of existing nuclear power plants (NPPs) must continue to be ensured. From an economic viewpoint, because of the long lead times associated with bringing new plants into service, securing the continued operation of existing plants for their planned lifetimes and possible life extension will be very important in the near term for meeting electrical power demands. The IAEA programmes in nuclear power plant ageing and life extension and in control and instrumentation promote technical information exchange between Member States with new programmes, offers assistance to Member States with an interest in reliability of NPP components, in-service inspection methods and programmes using on-line techniques, component monitoring and special technological topics of nuclear reactors. Significant experience already exists in the nuclear industry in developing and applying the monitoring techniques for different nuclear power plant applications, especially in monitoring of ageing phenomena for improving NPP availability. The purpose of this Specialists' Meeting was to bring together experts from operations, design, research and development and licensing to share their experience in: ageing mechanics of key structural components, methods of monitoring such ageing, tools for cost-effective implementation of the methods and methodologies, life management approaches and examples from current reactors, future direction for monitoring of key structural components in nuclear power plants. The meeting was organized by the IAEA International Working Groups on Life Management of Nuclear Power Plants (IWG-LMNPP) and Nuclear Power Plant Control and Instrumentation (TWG-NPPCI) in co-operation with the Czechoslovak Atomic Energy Commission and Skoda concern. Around 40 participants from 10 countries

Development of Core Monitoring System for Nuclear Power Plants (I)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, S.H.; Kim, Y.B.; Park, M.G; Lee, E.K.; Shin, H.C.; Lee, D.J. [Korea Electric Power Research Institute, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

1997-12-31

1.Object and Necessity of the Study -The main objectives of this study are (1)conversion of APOLLO version BEACON system to HP-UX version core monitoring system, (2)provision of the technical bases to enhance the in-house capability of developing more advanced core monitoring system. 2.Results of the Study - In this study, the revolutionary core monitoring technologies such as; nodal analysis and isotope depletion calculation method, advanced schemes for power distribution control, and treatment of nuclear databank were established. The verification and validation work has been successfully performed by comparing the results with those of the design code and measurement data. The advanced graphic user interface and plant interface method have been implemented to ensure the future upgrade capability. The Unix shell scripts and system dependent software are also improved to support administrative functions of the system. (author). 14 refs., 112 figs., 52 tabs.

Service life monitoring of the main components at the Temelin nuclear power plant

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hahn, J.; Vincour, D.

2007-01-01

Knowledge and experience gained from the introduction and periodical implementation of life assessment of the major components of the Temelin nuclear power plant is summarized. The initial Soviet technical design of the plant did not incorporate lifetime monitoring and evaluation, therefore it was completed with demonstrative strength and lifetime calculations from Czech companies. Moreover, a Westinghouse primary circuit diagnosis and monitoring system, including the monitoring of temperature and pressure cycles for low-cycle fatigue evaluation, was installed at the plant. The DIALIFE code for the calculation of mainly the low-cycle fatigue of the key pressure components, was developed and installed subsequently as a superstructure to the monitoring system. (author)

Technical evaluation report on the monitoring of electric power to the reactor-protection system for the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Selan, J.C.

1982-01-01

This report documents the technical evaluation of the monitoring of electric power to the reactor protection system (RPS) at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. The evaluation is to determine if the proposed design modification will protect the RPS from abnormal voltage and frequency conditions which could be supplied from the power supplies and will meet certain requirements set forth by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The proposed design modifications will protect the RPS from sustained abnormal voltage and frequency conditions from the supplying sources

Development of a remote monitoring and control system for nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Seung Jun; Kim, Jong Hyun; Seong, Poong Hyun

2002-01-01

Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) will be highly connected network enabled system and need to be monitored and controlled round the clock for high safety and availability. Using the network and web enabled tools, NPPs can be monitored remotely by operators at anytime from any place connected to the network via a general web browser. However, there are security and performance issues associated with such tools, as will be further discussed further. We developed a web-based Remote Monitoring and Control System (RMCS) that uses prevalent web technology. This work, as a preliminary study, performed the conceptual design of the web-based RMCS and developed the prototype

On-line Monitoring and Calibration Techniques in Nuclear Power Plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hashemian, H.M.

2011-01-01

Years of research, testing and experience in the field of sensor diagnostics have yielded many technologies which offer financial as well as operational benefits to the nuclear industry. Among these technologies are On-Line Monitoring (OLM) and On-Line Calibration of critical process monitoring sensors such as resistance temperature detectors (RTD), thermocouples, and pressure transmitters to name a few. The remote access and verification of these sensors have been shown to limit the exposure of maintenance personnel to harsh environments while at the same time effectively and efficiently diagnosing the health and performance of these sensors. In addition to sensors, technologies exist in determining not only the health of instrumentation and control (I and C) cabling that carries the signals from these sensors, but also these same cable testing techniques can be used in the remote evaluation of many end devices used in safety related operations as well. Given these advances in sensor system monitoring techniques it would seem to follow that nuclear utilities from around the world would be applying these tried and true techniques to optimize up time and to provide additional confidence in the output of processing sensors. However, although several of the world's regulatory bodies have approved of the concept of these techniques, few utilities have undertaken to fully embrace on-line monitoring and on-line calibration of nuclear process sensors. In the United States efforts are now underway, with representatives of the U.S. nuclear industry and nuclear power plant vendors to obtain generic NRC licensing for the use of OLM in nuclear power plants. If approved, generic licensing will help pave the way toward greater implementation of OLM and its related calibration techniques. (author)

The computerized management for individual monitoring data in Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lin Shumou; Yang Xiaochen

1995-01-01

The authors report the individual monitoring data management system (IDOSE) at Daya Bay Nuclear Power Station. The components of the individual monitoring system, the design requirements of IDOSE, the characteristics and application of this computerized management system are mainly presented. Its application shows that IDOSE meets the requirements of the concerning occupational standards of the state and matches with the requirements of IAEA/ISOE

Dynamic state estimation assisted power system monitoring and protection

Science.gov (United States)

Cui, Yinan

The advent of phasor measurement units (PMUs) has unlocked several novel methods to monitor, control, and protect bulk electric power systems. This thesis introduces the concept of "Dynamic State Estimation" (DSE), aided by PMUs, for wide-area monitoring and protection of power systems. Unlike traditional State Estimation where algebraic variables are estimated from system measurements, DSE refers to a process to estimate the dynamic states associated with synchronous generators. This thesis first establishes the viability of using particle filtering as a technique to perform DSE in power systems. The utility of DSE for protection and wide-area monitoring are then shown as potential novel applications. The work is presented as a collection of several journal and conference papers. In the first paper, we present a particle filtering approach to dynamically estimate the states of a synchronous generator in a multi-machine setting considering the excitation and prime mover control systems. The second paper proposes an improved out-of-step detection method for generators by means of angular difference. The generator's rotor angle is estimated with a particle filter-based dynamic state estimator and the angular separation is then calculated by combining the raw local phasor measurements with this estimate. The third paper introduces a particle filter-based dual estimation method for tracking the dynamic states of a synchronous generator. It considers the situation where the field voltage measurements are not readily available. The particle filter is modified to treat the field voltage as an unknown input which is sequentially estimated along with the other dynamic states. The fourth paper proposes a novel framework for event detection based on energy functions. The key idea is that any event in the system will leave a signature in WAMS data-sets. It is shown that signatures for four broad classes of disturbance events are buried in the components that constitute the

Data support system for controlling decentralised nuclear power industry facilities through uninterruptible condition monitoring

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Povarov Vladimir

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The article describes the automated uninterruptible multi-parameter system for monitoring operational vulnerability of critical NPP components, which differs from existing ones by being universally applicable for analysing mechanical damage of nuclear power unit components. The system allows for performing routine assessment of metal structures. The assessment of strained condition of a deteriorating component is based on three-dimensional finite element simulation with calculations adjusted with reference to in-situ measurements. A program for calculation and experimental analysis of maximum load and durability of critical area forms the core of uninterruptible monitoring system. The knowledge base on performance of the monitored components in different operating conditions and the corresponding comprehensive analysis of strained condition and deterioration rates compose the basis of control system data support, both for operating nuclear power units and robotic maintenance and repair systems.

Correlation techniques in nuclear power plant monitoring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bastl, W.

1976-01-01

Ever increasing effects are recently being made to monitor the mechanical behaviour of the nuclear power plants during operation. For technical as well as economical reasons one is forced to make do with the smallest number of sensors. In order to still obtain efficient control systems, an attempt is made on the one hand to make use of the already existing operational instrumentation, on the other hand to obtain a maximum of information by specific use of few additional sensors. In both cases, correlation analysis plays a large role because an optimum positioning of the sensor is seldom possible and thus, as a rule, the interesting information must be separated from very noisy signals. (orig./LH) [de

Concept of a new method for fatigue monitoring of nuclear power plant components

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zafosnik, M.; Cizelj, L.

2007-01-01

Fatigue is one of the well-understood aging mechanisms affecting mechanical components in many industrial facilities including nuclear power plants. Operational experience of nuclear power plants worldwide to date confirmed adequate design of safety related components against fatigue. In some cases however, for example when the plant life extension is envisioned, it may be very useful to monitor the remaining fatigue life of safety related components. Nuclear power plants components are classified into safety classes regarding their importance in mitigating the consequences of hypothetic accidents. Service life of components subjected to fatigue loading can be estimated with Usage Factor uk. A concept of the new method aiming both at monitoring the current state of the component and predicting its remaining lifetime in the life-extension conditions is presented. The method is based on determination of partial Usage Factor of components in which operating transients will be considered and compared to design transients. (author)

Monitoring and operational support on nuclear power plants using an artificial intelligence system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bianchi, P.H.; Baptista Filho, B.D.

2009-01-01

The monitoring task in nuclear power plants is of crucial importance with respect to safety and efficient operation. The operators have a wide range of variables to observe and analyze; the quantity of variables and their behavior determine the time they have to take correct decisions. The complexity of such aspects in a nuclear power plant influences both, the plant operational efficiency and the general safety issues. This paper describes an experimental system developed by the authors which aims to assist the operators of nuclear power plants to take quick and safe decisions. The system maps the status of plant and helps the operators to make quick judgments by using artificial intelligence methods. The method makes use of a small set of monitored variables and presents a map of the plant status in a friendly manner. This system uses an architecture that has multiple self-organizing maps to perform these tasks. (author)

Monitoring and operational support on nuclear power plants using an artificial intelligence system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bianchi, Paulo H.; Baptista Filho, Benedito D., E-mail: phbianchi@gmail.co, E-mail: bdbfilho@ipen.b [Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares (IPEN/CNEN-SP), Sao Paulo, SP (Brazil)

2009-07-01

The monitoring task in nuclear power plants is of crucial importance with respect to safety and efficient operation. The operators have a wide range of variables to observe and analyze; the quantity of variables and their behavior determine the time they have to take correct decisions. The complexity of such aspects in a nuclear power plant influences both, the plant operational efficiency and the general safety issues. This paper describes an experimental system developed by the authors which aims to assist the operators of nuclear power plants to take quick and safe decisions. The system maps the status of plant and helps the operators to make quick judgments by using artificial intelligence methods. The method makes use of a small set of monitored variables and presents a map of the plant status in a friendly manner. This system uses an architecture that has multiple self-organizing maps to perform these tasks. (author)

Prospects of Appliance-Level Load Monitoring in Off-the-Shelf Energy Monitors: A Technical Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anwar Ul Haq

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The smart grid initiative has encouraged utility companies worldwide to roll-out new and smarter versions of energy meters. Before an extensive roll-out, which is both labor-intensive and incurs high capital costs, consumers need to be incentivised to reap the long-term benefits of such smart meters. Off-the-shelf energy monitors (e-monitors can provide consumers with an insight into such potential benefits. As e-monitors are owned by the consumer, the consumer has greater control over the data, which significantly reduces the privacy and data confidentiality concerns. Because only limited online technical information is available about e-monitors, we evaluate several existing e-monitors using an online technical survey directly from the vendors. Besides automated e-monitoring, the use of different off-the-shelf e-monitors can also help to demonstrate state-of-the-art techniques such as non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM, data analytics, and the predictive maintenance of appliances. Our survey indicates a trend towards the incorporation of such state-of-the-art capabilities, particularly the appliance-level e-monitoring and load disaggregation. We have also discussed some essential requirements to implement load disaggregation in the next generation e-monitors. In future, these intelligent e-monitoring techniques will encourage effective consumer participation in the demand-side management (DSM programs.

Power distribution monitoring and control in 500 MWe PHWR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kumar, A.

1996-01-01

The 500 MWe Indian Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) is expected to be commissioned in a few years. It has a relatively large sized core with complex material distribution in comparison to the currently operating 220 MWe PHWRs. The resulting neutronically loosely coupled system demands continuous control of the core power distribution. This paper gives a brief description and analysis of the reactor monitoring and control system proposed for this reactor. (author). 11 refs, 8 figs, 3 tabs

On-line generation of three-dimensional core power distribution using incore detector signals to monitor safety limits

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jang, Jin Wook; Lee, Ki Bog; Na, Man Gyun; Lee, Yoon Joon

2004-01-01

It is essential in commercial reactors that the safety limits imposed on the fuel pellets and fuel clad barriers, such as the Linear Power Density (LPD) and the Departure from Nucleate Boiling Ratio (DNBR), are not violated during reactor operations. In order to accurately monitor the safety limits of current reactor states, a detailed three-dimensional (3D) core power distribution should be estimated from the in-core detector signals. In this paper, we propose a calculation methodology for detailed 3D core power distribution, using in-core detector signals and core monitoring constants such as the 3D Coupling Coefficients (3DCC), node power fraction, and pin-to-node factors. Also, the calculation method for several core safety parameters is introduced. The core monitoring constants for the real core state are promptly provided by the core design code and on-line MASTER(Multi-purpose Analyzer for Static and Transient Effects of Reactors), coupled with the core monitoring program. Through the plant computer, core state variables, which include reactor thermal power, control rod bank position, boron concentration, inlet moderator temperature, and flow rate, are supplied as input data for MASTER. MASTER performs the core calculation based on the neutron balance equation and generates several core monitoring constants corresponding to the real core state in addition to the expected core power distribution. The accuracy of the developed method is verified through a comparison with the current CECOR method. Because in all the verification calculation cases the proposed method shows a more conservative value than the best estimated value and a less conservative one than the current CECOR and COLSS methods, it is also confirmed that this method secures a greater operating margin through the simulation of the YGN-3 cycle-1 core from the viewpoint of the power peaking factor for the LPD and the pseudo hot pin axial power distribution for the DNBR calculation

Monitoring of geological repositories for high level radioactive waste

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2001-04-01

Geological repositories for disposal of high level radioactive waste are designed to provide isolation of the waste from human environment for many thousands of years. This report discusses the possible purposes for monitoring geological repositories at the different stages of a repository programme, the use that may be made of the information obtained and the techniques that might be applied. This report focuses on the different objectives that monitoring might have at various stages of a programme, from the initiation of work on a candidate site, to the period after repository closure. Each objective may require somewhat different types of information, or may use the same information in different ways. Having evaluated monitoring requirements, the report concludes with a brief evaluation of available monitoring techniques

An Internet of Things Approach to Electrical Power Monitoring and Outage Reporting

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Koch, Daniel B [ORNL

2017-01-01

The so-called Internet of Things concept has captured much attention recently as ordinary devices are connected to the Internet for monitoring and control purposes. One enabling technology is the proliferation of low-cost, single board computers with built-in network interfaces. Some of these are capable of hosting full-fledged operating systems that provide rich programming environments. Taken together, these features enable inexpensive solutions for even traditional tasks such as the one presented here for electrical power monitoring and outage reporting.

On-Road Driver Monitoring System Based on a Solar-Powered In-Vehicle Embedded Platform

OpenAIRE

Yen-Lin Chen; Chao-Wei Yu; Zi-Jie Chien; Chin-Hsuan Liu; Hsin-Han Chiang

2014-01-01

This study presents an on-road driver monitoring system, which is implemented on a stand-alone in-vehicle embedded system and driven by effective solar cells. The driver monitoring function is performed by an efficient eye detection technique. Through the driver’s eye movements captured from the camera, the attention states of the driver can be determined and any fatigue states can be avoided. This driver monitoring technique is implemented on a low-power embedded in-vehicle platform. Besides...

Structural health monitoring of power plant components based on a local temperature measurement concept

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rudolph, Juergen; Bergholz, S.; Hilpert, R.; Jouan, B.; Goetz, A.

2012-01-01

The fatigue assessment of power plant components based on fatigue monitoring approaches is an essential part of the integrity concept and modern lifetime management. It is comparable to structural health monitoring approaches in other engineering fields. The methods of fatigue evaluation of nuclear power plant components based on realistic thermal load data measured on the plant are addressed. In this context the Fast Fatigue Evaluation (FFE) and Detailed Fatigue Calculation (DFC) of nuclear power plant components are parts of the three staged approach to lifetime assessment and lifetime management of the AREVA Fatigue Concept (AFC). The three stages Simplified Fatigue Estimation (SFE), Fast Fatigue Evaluation (FFE) and Detailed Fatigue Calculation (DFC) are characterized by increasing calculation effort and decreasing degree of conservatism. Their application is case dependent. The quality of the fatigue lifetime assessment essentially depends on one hand on the fatigue model assumptions and on the other hand on the load data as the basic input. In the case of nuclear power plant components thermal transient loading is most fatigue relevant. Usual global fatigue monitoring approaches rely on measured data from plant instrumentation. As an extension, the application of a local fatigue monitoring strategy (to be described in detail within the scope of this paper) paves the way of delivering continuously (nowadays at a frequency of 1 Hz) realistic load data at the fatigue relevant locations. Methods of qualified processing of these data are discussed in detail. Particularly, the processing of arbitrary operational load sequences and the derivation of representative model transients is discussed. This approach related to realistic load-time histories is principally applicable for all fatigue relevant components and ensures a realistic fatigue evaluation. (orig.)

Wireless Sensor Network for Electric Transmission Line Monitoring

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Alphenaar, Bruce

2009-06-30

Generally, federal agencies tasked to oversee power grid reliability are dependent on data from grid infrastructure owners and operators in order to obtain a basic level of situational awareness. Since there are many owners and operators involved in the day-to-day functioning of the power grid, the task of accessing, aggregating and analyzing grid information from these sources is not a trivial one. Seemingly basic tasks such as synchronizing data timestamps between many different data providers and sources can be difficult as evidenced during the post-event analysis of the August 2003 blackout. In this project we investigate the efficacy and cost effectiveness of deploying a network of wireless power line monitoring devices as a method of independently monitoring key parts of the power grid as a complement to the data which is currently available to federal agencies from grid system operators. Such a network is modeled on proprietary power line monitoring technologies and networks invented, developed and deployed by Genscape, a Louisville, Kentucky based real-time energy information provider. Genscape measures transmission line power flow using measurements of electromagnetic fields under overhead high voltage transmission power lines in the United States and Europe. Opportunities for optimization of the commercial power line monitoring technology were investigated in this project to enable lower power consumption, lower cost and improvements to measurement methodologies. These optimizations were performed in order to better enable the use of wireless transmission line monitors in large network deployments (perhaps covering several thousand power lines) for federal situational awareness needs. Power consumption and cost reduction were addressed by developing a power line monitor using a low power, low cost wireless telemetry platform known as the ''Mote''. Motes were first developed as smart sensor nodes in wireless mesh networking applications

Challenges and Prospects of Equipment Health Monitoring with Wireless Sensor Network in Nuclear Power Plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, Dongyi; Jiang, Jin; Bari, Ataul; Wang, Quan; Hashemian, Hash-M.

2014-01-01

A wireless sensor network (WSN) system can offer tremendous benefits to equipment condition monitoring in newly-constructed and/or refurbished nuclear power plants (NPPs). However, it has not been widely accepted so far because of the following requirements by the NPP operators ectromagnetic (EM) emissions from the wireless transceivers must not interfere with the functionalities of the sensitive safety and protection systems in the plant, WSN must perform reliably in the presence of high levels of EM interference from devices such as relays and motor driven pumps, and ionizing radiation sources, dependable WSN performance in harsh industrial environments that are cluttered with cable trays, piping, valves, pumps, motors, and concrete and steel structures, and trict compliance with nuclear regulatory guidelines on EM emissions by the wireless devices. This paper will review the key issues associated with the deployment of WSN for equipment condition monitoring in NPPs. Some promising WSN technologies that can be used in NPP applications are also discussed

Challenges and Prospects of Equipment Health Monitoring with Wireless Sensor Network in Nuclear Power Plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chen, Dongyi [University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu (China); Jiang, Jin; Bari, Ataul; Wang, Quan [University of Western Ontario, Ontario (Canada); Hashemian, Hash-M. [AMS Technology Center Knoxville (United States)

2014-08-15

A wireless sensor network (WSN) system can offer tremendous benefits to equipment condition monitoring in newly-constructed and/or refurbished nuclear power plants (NPPs). However, it has not been widely accepted so far because of the following requirements by the NPP operators ectromagnetic (EM) emissions from the wireless transceivers must not interfere with the functionalities of the sensitive safety and protection systems in the plant, WSN must perform reliably in the presence of high levels of EM interference from devices such as relays and motor driven pumps, and ionizing radiation sources, dependable WSN performance in harsh industrial environments that are cluttered with cable trays, piping, valves, pumps, motors, and concrete and steel structures, and trict compliance with nuclear regulatory guidelines on EM emissions by the wireless devices. This paper will review the key issues associated with the deployment of WSN for equipment condition monitoring in NPPs. Some promising WSN technologies that can be used in NPP applications are also discussed.

Accounting for complementarity to maximize monitoring power for species management.

Science.gov (United States)

Tulloch, Ayesha I T; Chadès, Iadine; Possingham, Hugh P

2013-10-01

To choose among conservation actions that may benefit many species, managers need to monitor the consequences of those actions. Decisions about which species to monitor from a suite of different species being managed are hindered by natural variability in populations and uncertainty in several factors: the ability of the monitoring to detect a change, the likelihood of the management action being successful for a species, and how representative species are of one another. However, the literature provides little guidance about how to account for these uncertainties when deciding which species to monitor to determine whether the management actions are delivering outcomes. We devised an approach that applies decision science and selects the best complementary suite of species to monitor to meet specific conservation objectives. We created an index for indicator selection that accounts for the likelihood of successfully detecting a real trend due to a management action and whether that signal provides information about other species. We illustrated the benefit of our approach by analyzing a monitoring program for invasive predator management aimed at recovering 14 native Australian mammals of conservation concern. Our method selected the species that provided more monitoring power at lower cost relative to the current strategy and traditional approaches that consider only a subset of the important considerations. Our benefit function accounted for natural variability in species growth rates, uncertainty in the responses of species to the prescribed action, and how well species represent others. Monitoring programs that ignore uncertainty, likelihood of detecting change, and complementarity between species will be more costly and less efficient and may waste funding that could otherwise be used for management. © 2013 Society for Conservation Biology.

Towards a Cyber Defense Framework for SCADA Systems Based on Power Consumption Monitoring

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hernandez Jimenez, Jarilyn M [ORNL; Chen, Qian [Savannah State University; Nichols, Jeff A. {Cyber Sciences} [ORNL; Calhoun, Chelsea [Savannah State University; Sykes, Summer [Savannah State University

2017-01-01

Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) is an industrial automation system that remotely monitor, and control critical infrastructures. SCADA systems are major targets for espionage and sabotage attackers. According to the 2015 Dell security annual threat report, the number of cyber-attacks against SCADA systems has doubled in the past year. Cyber-attacks (i.e., buffer overflow, rootkits and code injection) could cause serious financial losses and physical infrastructure damages. Moreover, some specific cyber-attacks against SCADA systems could become a threat to human life. Current commercial off-the-shelf security solutions are insufficient in protecting SCADA systems against sophisticated cyber-attacks. In 2014 a report by Mandiant stated that only 69% of organizations learned about their breaches from third entities, meaning that these companies lack of their own detection system. Furthermore, these breaches are not detected in real-time or fast enough to prevent further damages. The average time between compromise and detection (for those intrusions that were detected) was 205 days. To address this challenge, we propose an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) that detects SCADA-specific cyber-attacks by analyzing the power consumption of a SCADA device. Specifically, to validate the proposed approach, we chose to monitor in real-time the power usage of a a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC). To this end, we configured the hardware of the tetsbed by installing the required sensors to monitor and collect its power consumption. After that two SCADA-specific cyber-attacks were simulated and TracerDAQ Pro was used to collect the power consumption of the PLC under normal and anomalous scenarios. Results showed that is possible to distinguish between the regular power usage of the PLC and when the PLC was under specific cyber-attacks.

On-line vibration and loose parts monitoring of nuclear power stations as a preventive maintenance tool

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

An equipment for on-line monitoring of vibrations and loose parts of nuclear power plants is described. The unit consists of piezoelectric transducers, preamplifiers, a data processor, and peripherals. It secures on-line measurement without interfering with the operation of the power plant. A diagram is given showing the monitor of vibrations and loose parts for pressurized water reactors and the Spectra-Scan equipment for the automatic recording and computer processing of noise signals is described. A survey is given of diagnostic methods for internal vibrations, noise and oscillations and procedures for the analysis of recordings are described. The experiences of Atomica International with the observation of vibrations in nuclear power plants are described and an economic assessment is presented of the efficiency of on-line monitoring of these vibrations. A cost-benefit analysis is made of such equipment which justifies their introduction. (B.S.)

Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory environmental monitoring report, calendar year 1996

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1996-01-01

The results of the effluent and environmental monitoring programs at the three Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) sites are summarized and assessed in this report. The principal function at KAPL sites (Knolls, Kesselring, and Windsor) is research and development in the design and operation of Naval nuclear propulsion plants. The Kesselring Site is also used for the training of personnel in the operation of these plants. The Naval nuclear propulsion plant at the Windsor Site is currently being dismantled. Operations at the three KAPL sites resulted in no significant release of hazardous substances or radioactivity to the environment. The effluent and environmental monitoring programs conducted by KAPL are designed to determine the effectiveness of treatment and control methods, to provide measurement of the concentrations in effluents for comparison with applicable standards, and to assess resultant concentrations in the environment. The monitoring programs include analyses of samples of liquid and gaseous effluents for chemical constituents and radioactivity as well as monitoring of environmental air, water, sediment, and fish. Radiation measurements are also made around the perimeter of each site and at off-site background locations

Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory environmental monitoring report, calendar year 1996

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1996-12-31

The results of the effluent and environmental monitoring programs at the three Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory (KAPL) sites are summarized and assessed in this report. The principal function at KAPL sites (Knolls, Kesselring, and Windsor) is research and development in the design and operation of Naval nuclear propulsion plants. The Kesselring Site is also used for the training of personnel in the operation of these plants. The Naval nuclear propulsion plant at the Windsor Site is currently being dismantled. Operations at the three KAPL sites resulted in no significant release of hazardous substances or radioactivity to the environment. The effluent and environmental monitoring programs conducted by KAPL are designed to determine the effectiveness of treatment and control methods, to provide measurement of the concentrations in effluents for comparison with applicable standards, and to assess resultant concentrations in the environment. The monitoring programs include analyses of samples of liquid and gaseous effluents for chemical constituents and radioactivity as well as monitoring of environmental air, water, sediment, and fish. Radiation measurements are also made around the perimeter of each site and at off-site background locations.

Cycle chemistry monitoring system as means of improving the reliability of the equipment at the power plants

Science.gov (United States)

Yegoshina, O. V.; Voronov, V. N.; Yarovoy, V. O.; Bolshakova, N. A.

2017-11-01

There are many problems in domestic energy at the present that require urgent solutions in the near future. One of these problems - the aging of the main and auxiliary equipment. Wear of equipment is the cause of decrease reliability and efficiency of power plants. Reliability of the equipment are associated with the introduction of cycle chemistry monitoring system. The most damageable equipment’s are boilers (52.2 %), turbines (12.6 %) and heating systems (12.3 %) according to the review of failure rate on the power plants. The most part of the damageability of the boiler is heated surfaces (73.2 %). According to the Russian technical requirements, the monitoring systems are responsible to reduce damageability the boiler heating surfaces and to increase the reliability of the equipment. All power units capacity of over 50 MW are equipped with cycle chemistry monitoring systems in order to maintain water chemistry within operating limits. The main idea of cycle chemistry monitoring systems is to improve water chemistry at power plants. According to the guidelines, cycle chemistry monitoring systems of a single unit depends on its type (drum or once-through boiler) and consists of: 20…50 parameters of on-line chemical analyzers; 20…30 «grab» sample analyses (daily) and about 15…20 on-line monitored operating parameters. The operator of modern power plant uses with many data at different points of steam/water cycle. Operators do not can estimate quality of the cycle chemistry due to the large volume of daily and every shift information and dispersion of data, lack of systematization. In this paper, an algorithm for calculating the quality index developed for improving control the water chemistry of the condensate, feed water and prevent scaling and corrosion in the steam/water cycle.

Analysis of superconducting microstrip resonator at various microwave power levels

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Srivastava, G.P.; Jacob, M.V.; Jayakumar, M.; Bhatnagar, P.K.; Kataria, N.D.

1997-01-01

The real and imaginary parts of the surface impedance of YBCO superconductors have been studied at different microwave power levels. Using the relations for the critical current density and the grain boundary resistance, a relation for calculating the power dependence of the surface resistance has been obtained. Also, a relation to find the resonant frequency of a superconducting microstrip resonator at various input power levels has been derived. Measurements have been carried out on various microstrip resonators to study the variation of surface resistance and resonant frequency at different rf power levels. The experimental results are in good agreement with theoretical results. copyright 1997 American Institute of Physics

University students' understanding level about words related to nuclear power

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oiso, Shinichi; Watabe, Motoki

2012-01-01

The authors conducted a survey of university students' understanding level about words related to nuclear power before and after Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant accident, and analyzed the difference between before and after the accident. The results show that university students' understanding level improved after the accident, especially in the case of reported words by mass media. Understanding level of some nuclear power security words which were not reported so much by mass media also improved. That may be caused by rising of people's concern about nuclear power generation after the accident, and there is a possibility that the accident motivated people to access such words via internet, journals, etc. (author)

Three-dimensional power doppler ultrasound is useful to monitor the response to treatment in a patient with primary papillary serous carcinoma of the peritoneum.

Science.gov (United States)

Su, Jen-Min; Huang, Yu-Fang; Chen, Helen H W; Cheng, Ya-Min; Chou, Cheng-Yang

2006-05-01

To date, this is the first report to monitor changes of intratumor vascularization and the response to radiation and Cyberknife therapy in a patient with recurrent primary papillary serous carcinoma of the peritoneum by three dimensional (3D) power Doppler ultrasonography (PDUS). Transvaginal 3D PDUS detected a recurrent presacral tumor with abundant intratumor vascularity. Serial examinations of the tumor volume and serum CA-125 level were studied before, during, and 6 mo after therapy. Meanwhile, the intratumor blood flow was measured and expressed as vascularity indices. All of the tumor volume, intratumor vascularity indices and serum CA-125 level decreased progressively following therapy. A remaining lesion with nearly absent intratumor power Doppler signals suggested a scarring lesion posttreatment. Indeed, CT-guided tissue biopsy confirmed fibrotic change. 3D PDUS is useful to monitor the response to treatments and to differentiate residual tumors from lesions of scarring change posttreatment. It provides more accurate posttreatment information than pelvic computed tomography.

Risk monitors - The State of the Art in their Development and Use at Nuclear Power Plants - Produced on behalf of IAEA and OECD/NEA WGRisk

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shepherd, C.H.; Yllera, F.J.; Kaufer, B.; Henneke, D.W.; Gaynor, D.; Sedlak, J.; Evans, M.G.K.; Boneham, P.; Horne, B.; Guymer, P.; Hatfield, M.; Hewitt, J.; Shanley, L.; Sorman, J.; Chao, C.C.; Pullen, R.; Reinhart, F.M.; Lantaron, A.; Huerta, A.; Vojnovic, D.; Hollo, E.; Fukuda, M.; De Gelder, P.; Schulz, R.; Lanore, J.M.

2004-01-01

This report provides a description of the state-of-the-art in the development and use of Risk Monitors at nuclear power plants in the Member States. The work has been carried out jointly by IAEA and OECD WGRisk. The information presented in this report has been obtained from three questionnaires on the development and use of Risk Monitors, software and Regulatory perspectives; from OECD and IAEA Workshops on Risk Monitors; and from IAEA consultants meetings and WGRisk Task Group meetings. Some of the work carried out to produce the report has been funded by the United Kingdom Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. The aim is to produce a report that describes the state of the art in the development of Risk Monitors and their use at nuclear power plants. This will: - define the terminology that relates to Risk Monitors as used in this report, - describe the state of the art in the development and use of Risk Monitors at nuclear power plants, and indicate future developments, - provide information on the software packages available for Risk Monitors, - identify the issues that need to be addressed in the development of a Living PSA for use in a Risk Monitor application and give guidance on how these issues can be resolved, - give information on the issues relating to the design of the Risk Monitor operator interface so that it gives a tool that can be used by all station staff, - discuss the issues that relate to the qualitative and quantitative risk measures addressed by Risk Monitors such as the definition of the Operational Safety Criteria which define the risk levels, the calculation of the Allowed Configuration Time and the definition of the qualitative risk levels that relate to the availability of safety systems, - give insights into the costs involved, the benefits that can be obtained from Risk Monitors and their limitations, and - discuss the regulatory perspective on the use of Risk Monitors to provide risk information that can be used during nuclear power

Comparison of p53 levels in lymphocytes and in blood plasma of nuclear power plant workers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roessner, Pavel; Chvatalova, Irena; Schmuczerova, Jana; Milcova, Alena; Roessner, Pavel; Sram, Radim J.

2004-01-01

p53 levels were assessed in lymphocytes and in blood plasma of workers from two Czech nuclear power plants (NPP): 114 subjects working in Temelin and 108 subjects working in Dukovany. Ionizing radiation (IR) exposure data were available for 64 and 59 subjects working in the monitored zones from the NPP in Temelin and Dukovany, respectively. The short-term doses of IR for these subjects were 0.01 and 0.12 mSv, and the long-term doses were 0.46 and 5.68 mSv, in the Temelin and Dukovany NPP, respectively. As a control group, 46 subjects living in Ceske Budejovice, a city nearby the Temelin NPP, were analyzed. The concentration of p53 in lymphocytes was significantly higher in workers from the monitored zone in the Dukovany NPP (median value 6.4 pg/μg protein, P < 0.001) than in workers from the Temelin NPP (3.2 pg/μg) as well as in the control group (3.5 pg/μg). In contrast, plasma levels of p53 were comparable in the control group (median value 116 pg/ml plasma) and workers from the monitored zone of Dukovany NPP (102 pg/ml), but lower in workers from Temelin NPP (5 pg/ml). Other factors affecting p53 levels were studied. Smoking resulted in increased p53 lymphocyte levels. The effect of polymorphisms in metabolic and DNA repair genes on p53 levels was analyzed. The correlation was found between p53 levels in lymphocytes and p53 codon 72 polymorphism in subjects working in NPPs, but not in the control group. The results of measurement p53 levels in lymphocytes suggest that this biomarker could reflect the short-term as well as long-term effects of low doses IR. Its impact on human health should be further explored

Hydrogen Monitoring in Nuclear Power Cycles

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maurer, Heini; Staub, Lukas

2012-09-01

Maintaining constant Hydrogen levels in Nuclear power cycles is always associated with the challenge to determine the same reliably. Grab sample analysis is complicated and costly and online instruments currently known are difficult to maintain, verify and calibrate. Although amperometry has been proven to be the most suitable measuring principle for online instruments, it has never been thoroughly investigated what electrode materials would best perform in terms of measurement drift and regeneration requirements. This paper we will cover the findings of a research program, conducted at the R and D centre of Swan Analytische Instrumente AG in Hinwil Switzerland, aimed to find ideal electrode materials and sensor design to provide the nuclear industry with an enhanced method to determine dissolved hydrogen in nuclear power cycles. (authors)

Power manager and method for managing power

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Burchard, A.T.; Kersten, G.; Molnos, A.M.; Milutinovic, A.; Goossens, K.G.W.; Steffens, E.F.M.

2009-01-01

A power manager (106) and method for managing the power supplied to an electronic device is provided. Furthermore, a system wherein the power supplied to an electronic device is managed is provided. The power manager (106) is operative to monitor a hardware monitor (104) during a monitoring time

76 FR 55137 - Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants

Science.gov (United States)

2011-09-06

... the NRC Library at http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/ . Regulatory guides are not... Nuclear Power Plants AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Draft regulatory guide; request for... comment draft regulatory guide (DG) DG-1278, ``Monitoring the Effectiveness of Maintenance at Nuclear...

Selection of liquid-level monitoring method for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory inactive liquid low-level waste tanks, remedial investigation/feasibility study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1994-11-01

Several of the inactive liquid low-level waste (LLLW) tanks at Oak Ridge National Laboratory contain residual wastes in liquid or solid (sludge) form or both. A plan of action has been developed to ensure that potential environmental impacts from the waste remaining in the inactive LLLW tank systems are minimized. This document describes the evaluation and selection of a methodology for monitoring the level of the liquid in inactive LLLW tanks. Criteria are established for comparison of existing level monitoring and leak testing methods; a preferred method is selected and a decision methodology for monitoring the level of the liquid in the tanks is presented for implementation. The methodology selected can be used to continuously monitor the tanks pending disposition of the wastes for treatment and disposal. Tanks that are empty, are scheduled to be emptied in the near future, or have liquid contents that are very low risk to the environment were not considered to be candidates for installing level monitoring. Tanks requiring new monitoring equipment were provided with conductivity probes; tanks with existing level monitoring instrumentation were not modified. The resulting data will be analyzed to determine inactive LLLW tank liquid level trends as a function of time

A 3D paper-based enzymatic fuel cell for self-powered, low-cost glucose monitoring.

Science.gov (United States)

Fischer, Christopher; Fraiwan, Arwa; Choi, Seokheun

2016-05-15

In this work, we demonstrate a novel low-cost, self-powered paper-based biosensor for glucose monitoring. The device operating mechanism is based on a glucose/oxygen enzymatic fuel cell using an electrochemical energy conversion as a transducing element for glucose monitoring. The self-powered glucose biosensor features (i) a 3D origami paper-based structure for easy system integration onto paper, (ii) an air-cathode on paper for low-cost production and easy operation, and (iii) a screen printed chitosan/glucose oxidase anode for stable current generation as an analytical signal for glucose monitoring. The sensor showed a linear range of output current at 1-5mM glucose (R(2)=0.996) with a sensitivity of 0.02 µA mM(-1). The advantages offered by such a device, including a low cost, lack of external power sources/sophisticated external transducers, and the capacity to rapidly generate reliable results, are well suited for the clinical and social settings of the developing world. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Simulation of decreasing reactor power level with BWR simulator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Suwoto; Zuhair; Rivai, Abu Khalid

2002-01-01

Study on characteristic of BWR using Desktop PC Based Simulator Program was analysed. This simulator is more efficient and cheaper for analyzing of characteristic and dynamic respond than full scope simulator for decreasing power level of BW. Dynamic responses of BWR reactor was investigated during the power level reduction from 100% FP (Full Power) which is 3926 MWth to 0% FP with 25% steps and 1 % FP/sec rate. The overall results for core flow rate, reactor steam flow, feed-water flow and turbine-generator power show tendency proportional to reduction of reactor power. This results show that reactor power control in BWR could be done by control of re-circulation flow that alter the density of water used as coolant and moderator. Decreasing the re-circulation flow rate will decrease void density which has negative reactivity and also affect the position of control rods

Research Based on the Acoustic Emission of Wind Power Tower Drum Dynamic Monitoring Technology

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Penglin; Sang, Yuan; Xu, Yaxing; Zhao, Zhiqiang

Wind power tower drum is one of the key components of the wind power equipment. Whether the wind tower drum performs safety directly affects the efficiency, life, and performance of wind power equipment. Wind power tower drum in the process of manufacture, installation, and operation may lead to injury, and the wind load and gravity load and long-term factors such as poor working environment under the action of crack initiation or distortion, which eventually result in the instability or crack of the wind power tower drum and cause huge economic losses. Thus detecting the wind power tower drum crack damage and instability is especially important. In this chapter, acoustic emission is used to monitor the whole process of wind power tower drum material Q345E steel tensile test at first, and processing and analysis tensile failure signal of the material. And then based on the acoustic emission testing technology to the dynamic monitoring of wind power tower drum, the overall detection and evaluation of the existence of active defects in the whole structure, and the acoustic emission signals collected for processing and analysis, we could preliminarily master the wind tower drum mechanism of acoustic emission source. The acoustic emission is a kind of online, efficient, and economic method, which has very broad prospects for work. The editorial committee of nondestructive testing qualification and certification of personnel teaching material of science and technology industry of national defense, "Acoustic emission testing" (China Machine Press, 2005.1).

Integrated online condition monitoring system for nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hashemian, Hashem M.

2010-01-01

Online condition monitoring or online monitoring (OLM) uses data acquired while a nuclear power is operating to continuously assess the health of the plant's sensors, processes, and equipment; to measure the dynamic performance of the plant's process instrumentation; to verify in-situ the calibration of the process instrumentation; to detect blockages, voids, and leaks in the pressure sensing lines; to identify core flow anomalies; to extend the life of neutron detectors and other sensors; and to measure the vibration of reactor internals. Both the steady-state or DC output of plant sensors and their AC signal or noise output can be used to assess sensor health, depending on whether the application is monitoring a rapidly changing (e.g., core barrel motion) or a slowly changing (e.g., sensor calibration) process. The author has designed, developed, installed, and tested OLM systems (comprised of software/hardware-based data acquisition and data processing modules) that integrate low-frequency (1 mHz to 1 Hz) techniques such as RTD cross-calibration, pressure transmitter calibration monitoring, and equipment condition monitoring and high-frequency (1 Hz to 1 kHz) techniques such as the noise analysis technique. The author has demonstrated the noise analysis technique's effectiveness for measuring the dynamic response-time of pressure transmitters and their sensing lines; for performing predictive maintenance on reactor internals; for detecting core flow anomalies; and for extending neutron detector life. Integrated online condition monitoring systems can combine AC and DC data acquisition and signal processing techniques, can use data from existing process sensors during all modes of plant operation, including startup, normal operation, and shutdown; can be retrofitted into existing PWRs, BWRs, and other reactor types and will be integrated into next-generation plants. (orig.)

Integrated online condition monitoring system for nuclear power plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hashemian, Hashem M. [Analysis and Measurement Services Corporation, Knoxville, TN (United States). AMS Technology Center

2010-09-15

Online condition monitoring or online monitoring (OLM) uses data acquired while a nuclear power is operating to continuously assess the health of the plant's sensors, processes, and equipment; to measure the dynamic performance of the plant's process instrumentation; to verify in-situ the calibration of the process instrumentation; to detect blockages, voids, and leaks in the pressure sensing lines; to identify core flow anomalies; to extend the life of neutron detectors and other sensors; and to measure the vibration of reactor internals. Both the steady-state or DC output of plant sensors and their AC signal or noise output can be used to assess sensor health, depending on whether the application is monitoring a rapidly changing (e.g., core barrel motion) or a slowly changing (e.g., sensor calibration) process. The author has designed, developed, installed, and tested OLM systems (comprised of software/hardware-based data acquisition and data processing modules) that integrate low-frequency (1 mHz to 1 Hz) techniques such as RTD cross-calibration, pressure transmitter calibration monitoring, and equipment condition monitoring and high-frequency (1 Hz to 1 kHz) techniques such as the noise analysis technique. The author has demonstrated the noise analysis technique's effectiveness for measuring the dynamic response-time of pressure transmitters and their sensing lines; for performing predictive maintenance on reactor internals; for detecting core flow anomalies; and for extending neutron detector life. Integrated online condition monitoring systems can combine AC and DC data acquisition and signal processing techniques, can use data from existing process sensors during all modes of plant operation, including startup, normal operation, and shutdown; can be retrofitted into existing PWRs, BWRs, and other reactor types and will be integrated into next-generation plants. (orig.)

Operational margin monitoring system for boiling water reactor power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fukutomi, S.; Takigawa, Y.

1992-01-01

This paper reports on an on-line operational margin monitoring system which has been developed for boiling water reactor power plants to improve safety, reliability, and quality of reactor operation. The system consists of a steady-state core status prediction module, a transient analysis module, a stability analysis module, and an evaluation and guidance module. This system quantitatively evaluates the thermal margin during abnormal transients as well as the stability margin, which cannot be evaluated by direct monitoring of the plant parameters, either for the current operational state or for a predicted operating state that may be brought about by the intended operation. This system also gives operator guidance as to appropriate or alternate operations when the operating state has or will become marginless

Integrating working level monitor EML Type TF-11