Control System Design Considerations in a Modern Nuclear Power Plant

Abstract

Applying new technologies is a challenge for instrumentation and control (I&C) designers to ensure that the overall principles of defence-in-depth, the independence of safety functions (credited in the safety case), and modern human factors engineering principles are maintained. This paper describes the Advanced CANDU Reactor (ACR-1000) I&C architecture, including the display/control systems and the design approaches employed to ensure that the fundamental premise of independence between safety and process control is not compromised and that the reliability targets for each layer of protection are fulfilled to meet the overall plant safety goals.