A Risk-Informed Assessment of Operational Options for Successfully Avoiding a Trip Setpoint

Michael D. Muhlheim, Pradeep Ramuhalli, Askin Guler Yigitoglu, Alex Huning, Abhinav Saxena

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

An important function of the control system is to maintain sufficient margin between plant operating parameters and reactor protection parameters to prevent unnecessary trips or to provide investment protection. The control system monitors real-time plant and equipment status and maintains specific knowledge of the trip setpoints of the reactor protection system under all operating regimes. Risk-informed decision-making requires a probabilistic assessment of the likelihood of success given the status of the plant/systems and component health, and a deterministic assessment between plant operating parameters and reactor protection parameters to prevent unnecessary trips and challenges to plant safety systems. The probabilistic portion of the risk-informed decision-making framework identifies those actions that if taken, would maintain system status within the acceptable region (i.e., avoiding a trip setpoint). The integration of deterministic calculations of those control options selected probabilistically using multi-physics analyses (i.e., neutronics, thermal, and thermal-hydraulics) provides the necessary information to optimize the selection of the control action to be taken. The metric for the deterministic analysis is based on maintaining and/or controlling the heat balance from the reactor core to the ultimate heat sink and must also reflect the success of maintaining this heat balance. Thus, the deterministic assessment between plant operating parameters and reactor protection parameters is used to identify the margin between operating conditions and trip setpoints. The control options are identified and ranked based on their probability of successfully avoiding a trip setpoint, how fast the system parameters being evaluated are approaching its trip setpoint, and how far it is from reaching that setpoint (i.e., margin) based on component health and equipment failures or being out of service in the Condensate and Feedwater System (FHS) of a BWR.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of 18th International Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Analysis, PSA 2023
PublisherAmerican Nuclear Society
Pages314-323
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)9780894487927
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023
Event18th International Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Analysis, PSA 2023 - Knoxville, United States
Duration: Jul 15 2023Jul 20 2023

Publication series

NameProceedings of 18th International Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Analysis, PSA 2023

Conference

Conference18th International Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Analysis, PSA 2023
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityKnoxville
Period07/15/2307/20/23

Funding

This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Contract No. DE-AC0 -00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. government purposes. The DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe - public-access-plan). This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The U.S. government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for U.S. government purposes. The DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).

FundersFunder number
DOE Public Access Plan
U.S. Government
U.S. Department of Energy

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