| Problem: | A major US Commercial Nuclear Electric Utility came to DYNAMIC Engineering with a challenging requirement to simplify and automate a very complex periodically performed engineering process. The process involved the monitoring of Pressure, Temperature, and Humidity instruments located at various locations inside a nuclear containment vessel. Previously a team of engineers and technicians would monitor instruments for three days continuous, while performing complex calculations and yielding a statistical leakage rate for the containment vessel. This result would then be presented to Federal Agencies to determine wether the reactors containment vessel meets Federal safety standards. | |
| Solution: | DYNAMIC Engineering designed a software/hardware system to acquire this instrumentation data automatically and in configurable time periods. A detailed quality assurance package and software traceability plan was developed to get Federal approval for the system. Verification tests were developed to unequivacably display system accuracy and performance. Final statistics calcilated were tested against Federal standrard data sets to show that the final reactor containment leakages calculated were identical to expected values. | |
| Results: | Personnel required to monitor and calculate the containment results were dropped from 18 down to 3 engineers. Instrumentation accuracy increased by over 50%, reading and calculating errors were completely eliminated. After publication these new testing techniques became an industry standard in the US Commercial Nuclear Power industry. |