Renewal of HOR Nuclear Instrumentation. From Analog to Digital System

This paper describes the renewal of the nuclear instrumentation of the research reactor named HOR in Delft. This research reactor was built around 1960. Because of ageing effects, the nuclear instrumentation was completely replaced in 1980, together with the construction of a new control room outside the containment. In 2010, after 30 years of successful operation, it became a real challenge to repair the nuclear channels because of obsolete components. Of course, this problem was identified earlier, and a project was started in 2008 to select and replace the electronics of the nuclear channels. For this purpose a European tender was started to select a manufacturer for the new electronics in accordance with the requirements. The boundary conditions to be fulfilled by the manufacturer were: a) The functionality of the instrumentation and the interface to the plant should remain the same, and b) The proposed type of equipment should have been installed and commissioned successfully at other research reactors of comparable type earlier. Only the electronics should be replaced, detectors and cabling are reused. We selected a digital system based on two microcontrollers, each one checking the other one. It turned out to be a flexible system. It was easily adapted to our needs, showing adequate provisions for guaranteeing data integrity. In the summer maintenance period of 2010 the instrumentation was successfully installed and commissioned. This paper will describe the steps taken and the tests performed. (author)