Proposal of a synchro panel meter instrument to replace the obsolete Synchro/Resolver reading device used as position indicator of safety rods assembly of the Brazilian IEA-R1 Nuclear Research Reactor

IPEN (Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares) was founded in 1956 (as Atomic Energy Institute - IEA) as a facility complex, for the research, development and application, in the nuclear technology field. The institute is recognized as a national leader in nuclear research and development (R and D), including the areas of reactor operation, radiopharmaceuticals, industrial and laboratory applications, materials science and laser technologies and applications. IPEN's main facility is the IEA-R1, nuclear research reactor (NRR), today, the only one in Brazil with a power level suitable for applications in physics, chemistry, biology and engineering. Some radioisotopes are also produced in IEA-R1, for medical and other applications. A common problem faced in the IEA-R1 maintenance is instrumentation obsolescence; spare parts are no more available, because of discontinued production, and an updating program is mandatory, aiming at modernization of old-aged I and C systems. In the presented context, an electronic system is here proposed, as a replacement for the reactor safety (shim) rods assembly position indicator, based on an open-source physical computing platform called Arduino, which includes a simple microcontroller board and a software-code development environment. A mathematical algorithm for the synchro-motor signal processing was developed, and the obtained resolution was better than 1.5%. (author)