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System engineering for future nuclear power plant operation

© F.Rhodes/CEA
The tightening of operating regulations by nuclear safety authorities post-Fukushima has led to increased workloads for plant operators. To boost automation in the operation of its future nuclear power plants, EDF has partnered with CEA-List. The collaboration aims to create a systems engineering environment for designing new operational control systems.

Conducted at the CEA-EDF-Framatome research institute (I3P), this project seeks to deliver an integrated environment for multidisciplinary engineering teams (operations, ergonomics, etc.) and plant operators. It will enable prototyping and evaluation of I&C architectures with diverse requirements, including functional and safety criteria. The environment will also incorporate tools for real-time operational requirements monitoring and operator training. The project has four components:

  1. Automation of operational requirement monitoring using the ARTiMon tool to prevent undesirable or suboptimal operational practices;
  2. Topological transformation of mechanical schematics for control-specific applications, with the central data model defined in our Papyrus tool;
  3. A formalization language (combining process algebra and fuzzy logic) to convert operational procedures—currently represented as flowcharts or in natural language—into virtual operators for validation;
  4. An I&C function tool to assign system roles. The environment will link multiple modeling levels, allowing engineers to measure how design changes impact interconnected systems. Integration with existing nuclear engineering tools is also being explored. ARTiMon is currently being brought to market at EDF’s request. Meanwhile, the I&C function allocation tool is undergoing internal deployment within EDF.

Contributed to the writing of this article:

  • JEAN-PIERRE GALLOIS RESEARCH ENGINEER at CEA-List
  • NICOLAS RAPIN RESEARCH ENGINEER at CEA-List

CEA-List contributed innovative technologies through a digital lab designed for our people in charge of developing tomorrow’s nuclear I&C systems.

LAURENCE PICCI

RESEARCH ENGINEER — EDF R&D

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