Installation of foundation fieldbus to KUR

The instrumentation and control system for the research reactor in Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto University has been used for the safe and steady operation since the initial critical attainment in 1964. It has been modified and added many devices in the chance of increasing the reactor power from 1 MW to 5 MW, installing new experimental facilities or fitting to modified nuclear regulations. In order to avoid the unscheduled shutdown of the research reactor by cause the failure of the devices, most of instrumentation system was renewed in 1999. Operating the research reactor more safely and reliably, Supervisory Control Automation and Data Acquisition System which employed personal computers with the Windows NT operating system was added to the conventional instrumentation system, and the fieldbus system called Foundation Fieldbus was installed. Compared with conventional instrumentation system, each fieldbus system has some advantages. Many kinds of fieldbus systems have been developed and sold on the markets in some countries. Foundation Fieldbus standardizing international, which was able to use the devices made by multi-vendor was tentatively installed to study particular techniques about Foundation Fieldbus. The primary coolant flow rate, the temperature difference between the reactor tank inlet and outlet temperatures, the calorimetric power and the reactor power in nuclear instrumentation are monitored on human-machine interface devices on the fieldbus. The programmable logic controller is employed to control the information system for the reactor. This paper introduces Foundation Fieldbus installed. (author)