NUCLEAR POWER – CONTROL, RELIABILITY AND HUMAN FACTORS Edited by Pavel V. Tsvetkov Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors Edited by Pavel V. Tsvetkov Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2011 InTech All chapters are Open Access articles distributed under the Creative Commons Non Commercial Share Alike Attribution 3.0 license, which permits to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work in any medium, so long as the original work is properly cited. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published articles. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Petra Zobic Technical Editor Teodora Smiljanic Cover Designer Jan Hyrat Image Copyright Ensuper, 2010. Used under license from Shutterstock.com First published September, 2011 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechweb.org Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors, Edited by Pavel V. Tsvetkov p. cm. ISBN 978-953-307-599-0 free online editions of InTech Books and Journals can be found at www.intechopen.com Contents Preface IX Part 1 Instrumentation and Control 1 Chapter 1 Sensor Devices with High Metrological Reliability 3 Kseniia Sapozhnikova and Roald Taymanov Chapter 2 Multi-Version FPGA-Based Nuclear Power Plant I&C Systems: Evolution of Safety Ensuring 27 Vyacheslav Kharchenko, Olexandr Siora and Volodymyr Sklyar Chapter 3 Nuclear Power Plant Instrumentation and Control 49 H.M. Hashemian Chapter 4 Design Considerations for the Implementation of a Mobile IP Telephony System in a Nuclear Power Plant 67 J. García-Hernández, J. C. Velázquez- Hernández, C. F. García-Hernández and M. A. Vallejo-Alarcón Chapter 5 Smart Synergistic Security Sensory Network for Harsh Environments: Net4S 85 Igor Peshko Chapter 6 An Approach to Autonomous Control for Space Nuclear Power Systems 101 Richard Wood and Belle Upadhyaya Chapter 7 Radiation-Hard and Intelligent Optical Fiber Sensors for Nuclear Power Plants 119 Grigory Y. Buymistriuc Chapter 8 Monitoring Radioactivity in the Environment Under Routine and Emergency Conditions 145 De Cort Marc VI Contents Chapter 9 Origin and Detection of Actinides: Where Do We Stand with the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Technique? 167 Mario De Cesare Part 2 Reliability and Failure Mechanisms 187 Chapter 10 Evaluation of Dynamic J-R Curve for Leak Before Break Design of Nuclear Reactor Coolant Piping System 189 Kuk-cheol Kim, Hee-kyung Kwon, Jae-seok Park and Un-hak Seong Chapter 11 Feed Water Line Cracking in Pressurized Water Reactor Plants 207 Somnath Chattopadhyay Chapter 12 Degradation Due to Neutron Embrittlement of Nuclear Vessel Steels: A Critical Review about the Current Experimental and Analytical Techniques to Characterise the Material, with Particular Emphasis on Alternative Methodologies 215 Diego Ferreño, Iñaki Gorrochategui and Federico Gutiérrez-Solana Chapter 13 Corrosion Monitoring of the Steam Generators of V-th and VI-th Energy Blocks of Nuclear Power Plant “Kozloduy” 239 Nikolai Boshkov, Georgi Raichevski, Katja Minkova and Penjo Penev Chapter 14 Collapse Behavior of Moderately Thick Tubes Pressurized from Outside 257 Leone Corradi, Antonio Cammi and Lelio Luzzi Chapter 15 Resistance of 10GN2MFA-A Low Alloy Steel to Stress Corrosion Cracking in High Temperature Water 275 Karel Matocha, Petr Čížek, Ladislav Kander and Petr Pustějovský Part 3 Component Aging 287 Chapter 16 Aging Evaluation for the Extension of Qualified Life of Nuclear Power Plant Equipment 289 Pedro Luiz da Cruz Saldanha and Paulo Fernando F. Frutuoso e Melo Chapter 17 Non-Destructive Testing for Ageing Management of Nuclear Power Components 311 Gerd Dobmann Part 4 Plant Operation and Human Factors 339 Chapter 18 Human Aspects of NPP Operator Teamwork 341 Márta Juhász and Juliánna Katalin Soós Contents VII Chapter 19 The Human Factors Approaches to Reduce Human Errors in Nuclear Power Plants 377 Yong-Hee Lee, Jaekyu Park and Tong-Il Jang Chapter 20 Virtual Control Desks for Nuclear Power Plants 393 Maurício Alves C. Aghina, Antônio Carlos A. Mól, Carlos Alexandre F. Jorge, André C. do Espírito Santo, Diogo V. Nomiya, Gerson G. Cunha, Luiz Landau, Victor Gonçalves G. Freitas and Celso Marcelo F. Lapa Chapter 21 Risk Assessment in Accident Prevention Considering Uncertainty and Human Factor Influence 407 Katarína Zánická Hollá Preface Due to economic growth and increasing population, energy demands must be satisfied in a sustainable manner assuring inherent safety, efficiency and minimized environmental impact. Nuclear power has long posed a dilemma for environmentalists and scientists alike. On the one hand it is seen as a cheap, clean energy source whilst on the other some have concerns over its ability to dispose of radioactive waste. Whichever viewpoint one may assume, nuclear power is at the forefront of clean energy technology and can be made available on a large scale to meet energy needs of the rapidly growing world. Today’s nuclear reactors are safe and highly efficient energy systems that give electricity and a multitude of co-generation energy products ranging from potable water to heat for industrial applications. Meanwhile, a catastrophic earthquake and a tsunami in Japan led to the nuclear accident that forced us to rethink our approach to nuclear safety and design requirements. It also encouraged the growing of interest for advanced nuclear energy systems and next generation nuclear reactors, inherently capable of withstanding natural disasters, avoiding catastrophic consequences and leaving no environmental impact. Advances in reactor designs, materials and human- machine interfaces assure safety and reliability of emerging reactor technologies, eliminating possibilities for high-consequence human error, such as those which have occurred in the past. New instrumentation and control technologies based in digital systems, novel sensors and measurement approaches facilitate safety, reliability and economic competitiveness of nuclear power options. Autonomous operation scenarios are becoming increasingly popular to consider for small modular systems designed for remote regions with limited industrial infrastructure or regions with no such infrastructure but with human population whose safety, prosperity and growth depend on a reliable energy supply. This book is one in a series of books on nuclear power published by InTech. It consists of four major sections and contains twenty-one chapters on topics from key subject areas pertinent to instrumentation and control, operation reliability, system aging and human-machine interfaces.The book opens with the section on instrumentation and control aspects of nuclear power. The following sections and included chapters address selected issues in reliability and failure mechanisms, component aging, plant X Preface operation and human factors. The book shows both advantages and challenges emphasizing the need for further development and innovation. With all diversity of topics in 21 chapters, the issues of nuclear power control, reliability and human factor represent a common thread that is easily identifiable in all chapters of the book. The “systems thinking” approach allows synthesizing the entire body of provided information into a consistent integrated picture of the real-life complex engineering system – nuclear power system – where everything works together. The goal of this book and the entire book series on nuclear power is to present nuclear power to our readers as a promising energy source that has a unique potential to meet energy demands with minimized environmental impact, near-zero carbon footprint, and competitive economics via robust potential applications. The book targets a broad potential readership group - students, researchers and specialists in the field - who are interested in learning about nuclear power. The idea is to facilitate intellectual cross-fertilization between field experts and non-field experts taking advantage of methods and tools developed by both groups. The book will hopefully inspire future research and development efforts, innovation by stimulating ideas. We hope our readers will enjoy the book and will find it both interesting and useful. Pavel V. Tsvetkov Department of Nuclear Engineering Texas A&M University United States of America [...]... failure rates and stability of a failure rate) to measuring instruments Usage of methods based on these assumptions leads to crude errors in the CI determination To decrease the risk of getting unreliable information, usually the CI is no more than 2-3 years However, the cost of a sensor device calibration is typically 3 5–3 00 euro, and the 4 Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors number... since 1980s (Druzhinin & Kochugurov, 1988; Sapozhnikova, 1991; Sapozhnikova et al., 1988; Tarbeyev et al., 2007) Later on, such activity was also expanded in the UK and USA as well 8 Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors as in Germany, China and other countries (Barberree, 2003; Hans & Ricken, 2007; Henry & Clarke, 1993; Henry et al., 2000; Feng et al., 2007, 2009; Reed, 2003; Werthschutzky... shunt located inside the rack cavity (Fig 3a) This shunt consists of a set of bushings made of magnetic and nonmagnetic steel The coils and the set of bushings form a single-track code chain The sequence of bushings in this shunt is quasi-random The total 18 Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors length of the shunt is slightly more than 2 m For significantly longer shunts, the deeper rack... The only difference consists in performing the procedure with the help of the built-in reference measurement standards available in an apparent or implicit (as in the last example) form 12 Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors 5 Metrological diagnostic self-check Essence and specific features The self-check of such a type is a qualitatively new procedure in providing the traceability... response to an electromagnet current cyclogram,  checking the control rod and rack coupling The ability to obtain such diagrams is determined by both the high displacement sensitivity of the sensor device and the fact that the time interval between two consecutive control rod 20 Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors position measurements is very short In case of the drive fault, the... Review, Vol 27, No.1, pp 48-56, ISSN 0260-2288 Feng, Z.; Wang, Q & Shida, K (2009) Design and Implementation of a Self-Validating Pressure Sensor, IEEE Sensors Journal, Vol 5, No.3, pp 207-218, ISSN 1530437X 24 Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors Fridman, A.E (1991) Theory of Metrological Reliability Measurement Techniques, Vol 34, No.11 1075-1091, ISSN 0543-1972, ISSN 1573-8906... account a known relationships between the signals of several sensors or the signals of sensors and parameters of a technological process model;  information redundancy of a sequence of sensor device signals which is revealed with the help of mathematical methods 10 Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors In the publications of the authiors of this chapter (Taymanov & Sapozhnikova, 2009,... Adaptive methods 6 Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors allow to take into account the variability of the environment (Taymanov & Sapozhnikova, 2010b) The adjustment of the insulating properties of an animal’s pelt with the season increases the likelihood of survival under a changing environment, as does the active thermoregulation of measuring instruments The appearance and growth of... interval the condition of the equipment and flow of the controlled technological process do not change significantly The status called “unreliable” indicates that a risk to use an unreliable measurement result is great The decision should be made to perform the maintenance of a sensor device or measuring system 22 Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors Status gradations can be joined... operation, a nominal value  0 of the DP is determined A relative 16 Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors deviation  of the DP from the nominal value is rigidly connected with the error In the process of operation the check of the metrological serviceability is performed by determining  at a temperature measured and comparing it with a permissible relative deviation When the value . NUCLEAR POWER – CONTROL, RELIABILITY AND HUMAN FACTORS Edited by Pavel V. Tsvetkov Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors Edited. 2007). Later on, such activity was also expanded in the UK and USA as well Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors 8 as in Germany, China and other countries (Barberree, 2003;. However, the cost of a sensor device calibration is typically 3 5–3 00 euro, and the Nuclear Power – Control, Reliability and Human Factors 4 number of sensor devices is growing year by year.