Strategies for instrumentation and control upgrades

The original system instrumentation in many nuclear power plants is aging, and as a result, system reliability is decreasing while maintenance and testing costs are increasing. Replacement components and spare parts are difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, therefore decreasing the feasibility repairing these devices. In addition, compared to today´s technology, system operation functions are limited by the original analog technology. In response to this situation, GE Nuclear Energy (GE-NE) has developed replacements for both safety and non-safety BWR instrumentation and control systems which resolve the equipment obsolescence problem while improving reliability and reducing maintenance costs. Digital technology offers BWR owners the opportunity to install a high degree of intelligence, various levels of redundancy, and elaborate operator displays into instrumentation and control systems. The use of digital technology also allows for easy implementation of strategies not previously considered practical in older analog equipment systems. This paper discusses the strategies for instrumentation and control upgrades to replace existing analog systems in operating Boiling Water Reactors (BWR) together with the use of productivity tools developed by Black & Veatch to improve design efficiency, increase design quality, minimize the total implementation cost, and enhance configuration management of the design basis