Quantitative evaluation of common cause failures in high safety-significant safety-related digital instrumentation and control systems in nuclear power plants

Han Bao, Hongbin Zhang, Tate Shorthill, Edward Chen and Svetlana Lawrence

Reliability Engineering and System Safety, 2023, vol. 230, issue C

Abstract: Digital instrumentation and control (DI&C) systems at nuclear power plants (NPPs) have many advantages over analog systems. They are proven to be more reliable, cheaper, and easier to maintain given obsolescence of analog components. However, they also pose new engineering and technical challenges, such as possibility of common cause failures (CCFs) unique to digital systems. This paper proposes a Platform for Risk Assessment of DI&C (PRADIC) that is developed by Idaho National Laboratory (INL). A methodology for evaluation of software CCFs in high safety-significant safety-related DI&C systems of NPPs was developed as part of the framework. The framework integrates three stages of a typical risk assessment—qualitative hazard analysis and quantitative reliability and consequence analyses. The quantified risks compared with respective acceptance criteria provide valuable insights for system architecture alternatives allowing design optimization in terms of risk reduction and cost savings. A comprehensive case study performed to demonstrate the framework's capabilities is documented in this paper. Results show that the PRADIC is a powerful tool capable to identify potential digital-based CCFs, estimate their probabilities, and evaluate their impacts on system and plant safety.

Keywords: Common cause failures; High safety-significant safety-related; Digital instrumentation and control systems; Nuclear power plants (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:reensy:v:230:y:2023:i:c:s0951832022005889

DOI: 10.1016/j.ress.2022.108973

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