Design concepts for a nuclear digital instrumentation and control system platform

The objective of this paper is to present the development results of the nuclear instrumentation and control system in Taiwan. As the Taiwan nuclear power plants age, the need to consider upgrading of both their safety and non-safety-related instrumentation and control systems becomes more urgent. Meanwhile, the digital instrumentation and control system that is based on current fast evolving electronic and information technologies are difficult to maintain effectively. Therefore, Institute of Nuclear Energy Research was made a decision to promote the Taiwan Nuclear Instrumentation and Control System project to collaborate with domestic electronic industry to establish self-reliant capabilities on the design, manufacturing, and application of nuclear instrumentation and control systems with newer technology. In the case of safety-related applications like nuclear instrumentation and control, safety-oriented quality control is required. In order to establish a generic qualified digital platform, the world-wide licensing experience should be considered in the licensing process. This paper describes the qualification and certification tools by IEC 61508 for design and development of safety related equipment and explains the basis for many decisions made while performing the digital upgrade. (Author)