Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Topological Methodology
Topological Methodology
M. Teeglia, M. Zad
dra, A. Perassso, F. Benveenuto
Prefaace
Startiing from thee consideration that thee performancces of a Nucclear Power Plant are diirectly
bound to techniccal plant behaviours, byy opportune ely managing g all availab le plant technical
mation it is p
inform possible to im
mprove plantt performance.
‐ Deficienccies at the Pla
ant present sstatus;
‐ Situations that can prroduce defic iencies in the future;
‐ Safety aspects.
In this conditionn, the global plant visioon is delegaated only to
o the upper manageme
ent by
colleccting all the processed reesults from t he various te eams.
Fig. 1 ‐ Traditional Ap
pproach
The eeffectivenesss of the tradiitional approoach to the P
Plant Perform
mance Monittoring depen
nds on
severral factors:
‐ Specializeed teams obsservation annd fast action
n;
‐ Specializeed teams cap
pability to unnderstand thhe interdiscip
plinary issue;;
‐ Subjectivve perception
n of the probblem by the tteams memb bers;
‐ Upper maanagement ccapability to quickly get rresults from the specializzed team rep
ports.
methodology highlights tw
The ttraditional m wo different issues:
‐ Upper management
m point of vieew is alwayss previously filtered by the interme
ediate
observerss;
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‐ Intermed
diate observe ers point of vview is influe
enced by the
eir own speccialization; it is not
an unbiassed point of view.
Creatting a correct integrated informative system makkes it possible to obtain bbetter resultts (Fig.
2), i.ee.:
Fig. 2 ‐ Unbiased app
proach
Engin
neering and Data Processing
In a p
plant, the automatic data a process sysstem generaates and storres a lot of pplant processs data,
but tthese data are normallly dedicatedd to the dirrect processs control. Pllant perform
mance
monitoring is stilll considered as an engineeering activity to be man nually carriedd out with limited
autommatic support.
The rresult of the automatic performance analysis will cover the fo
ollowing aspeects:
‐ Identificaation of the p
performancee deficienciess,
‐ Early failu
ure identifica
ation,
‐ Design paarameter vallidation,
‐ Process p parameter tu uning,
‐ Plant beh havior modeling,
‐ Integratioon and accou unting of thee componentt aging,
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‐ Maintenance activity prioritization,
‐ Overall plant status provided in real time.
IT System Project
Development of the project consists of three different steps:
a) Preparation of the reference database and the automatic feeding structure
b) Development of the analysis tools and interfaces
c) Development of the real time data processor engine
Who feeds the information to the system?
Plants usually record all the process parameters using an electronic format; sampling
frequency from 0.2 Hz for the oldest plant to 2‐5 Hz for the modern ones. The format of the
stored data is very simple: time, parameter name, value.
Considering that a plant has from 1000 to 5000 recorded parameters, these ones represent a
huge amount of available information.
The only data required are:
‐ Recorded process data
‐ Feedback information about the performed maintenance activities
How the recorded information is useful for the envisaged scope
Conceptually, the recorded information represents the complete description of the “universe”
plant. Variations in the values of the parameters represent the description of the plant
evolution. It means that a prolonged and in depth analysis of the variations in parameters and
the relation among them allows us to obtain a complete “written” picture of the plant status
and evolution.
Theoretically, if the available information set is complete, the plant status at the “next instant”
is perfectly foreseeable within a reduced error band because all the parameters that could
affect the plant behaviour are known. The possible error has to be investigated on the
parameters that are external to the plant and so, not perfectly foreseeable.
The recorded information, integrated by information manually gathered and inputted (e.g.
maintenance information), is enough for the envisaged scope.
Plant data base description
The data received from the plant are processed in order to obtain the information in a useful
form. A knowledge data base is required in order to correctly process the data flux. In that
data base the following data are coded:
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‐ Instruments and information sou rces catalog with referen nce to the reelated equipment;
the preccision class o
of each instruument and tthe quality cclass assignm
ment rules (q quality
class concept is discussed later);
‐ Equipment and lines catalog;
‐ Flows strructure descrribing the prrocess flows and their re
elations withh equipment, lines
and instruments;
‐ Operatingg conditionss describing the differen g conditions and definin
nt operating ng the
target parameters;
‐ Symmetrry and congrruency catallog describinng the equip
pment and lines with similar
s
process cconditions;
‐ Target strructure where the structture of the taargets is defined.
Qualiity Class
Fig.. 3 ‐ Quality Cla
asses
Data Processing
‐ Not Chronologically
‐ Chronolo
ogically
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S
Single Fuell Channel Contribution
C n to Prima
ary Heat Transport Sy
ystem (PHT
T)
305 305
300 300
295 295
290 290
285 285
35 0 0 0 3 04
3 30 5 .5
25 0 00 30 5
Fu e 2 .5 ºC
l Ch 150 00 306
ture
ann
el
1 50
306
.5 per a
0 3 07 Tem
PHT
Fig. 4 ‐ N
Not Chronological result
The ssecond proceess, Chronolo
ogically, is diivided in two
o sections:
Fig. 5 ‐‐ Plant Configurations
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2500
Steam
m Genera
ator Leve
el
Events Number
2000
1500
1000
500
0
Eventt Duration
n (hh:mm
m:ss)
‐500
Fig. 6 – Evvent Frequency Analysis
Next Instant
All th
he described processes a
are carried oout either on
n the real values basis, eeither on the
e Next
Valuee calculation basis.
‐ estimatio
on based on tthe previouss trend of the
e processed parameter;
‐ estimatio meter exclud ing the proccessed
on based on the behavioor of all processed param
one.
Fig. 7 ‐ N ext Instant com
mputation
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The p processing o of the Next Instant estim
mated value is carried ouut in the samme manner a as the
real vvalue. In this way and witth whicheve r, Time Level (discussed later) inform
mation aboutt what
exacttly happened d and what wwas expectedd is available
e and comparable (Fig. 8)).
Fig. 8 ‐ Upper time levvel path
The eevents proceess for the Next Instant vvalues is not exactly the same as thee one used fo or the
real vvalue. The evvent is open once the quuality class o
of the expected data resuults differentt from
what happened. That method allows us tto obtain earrly alert on the potential failure.
Time Constant
The p
processed data
d ng board for the promiised Global Plant
availability procure s the startin
Perfo
ormance Mo onitoring butt some otherr very importtant information is still m missing.
Fig. 9 ‐ Tim
me Constant co
omputation
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The TTime Constant is automa atically com puted on the event trennd basis andd the correcttion is
then applied onn the inputt data. Thiss proceduree allows us to obtain all input values
v
chron
nologically processed ressult in a perfeectly aligned
d manner in tterms of cauuse‐effect.
Univo
ocal Configu
uration
Fig. 10 ‐ Univvocal configura
ation process
This information represents an importannt tool in orrder to “hunnt” the uncoontrolled varriables
that affect the plant perform
mance. Cons idering that all the design parameteers are submmitted
hat some uuncontrolled variable exxists highlighhts two diffferent
for ccontrol, the evidence th
possibilities:
‐ Initial dessign considerations weree not compleete
‐ An exterrnal environ nmental va riable or a
a human fa
actor is afffecting the plant
performaance
Time Coding
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descrription: life‐ttime (standa
ard or extennded Plant Life),
L year, season,
s monnth, week, day
d of
weekk, shift, hour,, minute and d second.
Figg. 11 ‐ Time Cod
ding
The levels includeed in the tim
me coding (m month, weekk, day of wee ek, hour, minnute, second d, etc)
are aalso considerred as input parameter aand they allow us to asssociate the eevent to a certain
time condition (e.g.
( certain days of w
week, season
n or shift). In this wayy the numb ber of
uncontrolled variable is reducced and mosst of them caan be associa ated to a speecific time levvel.
Time coding allo ows perform ming an addditional datta processin ng. The origginal inform mation
receivved on high
h frequency basis (seconnds or fractions) reports to the up per time levvel its
averaage value (ob btained through a dedicaated statisticcal algorithm) within the considered upper
intervval. This “vallues reportin
ng” is perfor med through h all the leve els considereed within the e time
codin
ng. The data process on all the conssidered twellve time leve
els is carriedd out in the same
mann ner already d described.
The iinformation availability about whatt happened during the long lead leevels allows us to
orm additional analysis on the data innput level:
perfo
‐ Providingg a path for the expecteed trend off the lower level inform
mation, permmits to
extend thhe Event fun nction to a siituation whe en the value is out of thhe expected upper
trend patth (Fig. 8);
‐ Providingg long term b basis analysiss on the paraameters deviation, allow ws us ‐ for exa
ample
‐ to perfo
orm an evaluation of maiintenance an nd aging.
Deveelopment of the Analysiss Tools
Thesee data reprresent a con ntinuously uupdated stattus of the plant, whichh can be fu urther
analyyzed by analysis tools an
nd interfacess. These too
ols, directly connected
c t o the data bases,
b
allow
w the definitioon of:
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‐ The best working point for each parameter depending on its target (example is
reported in Figure 12). This evaluation is performed from the Not Chronological data
process. The condition really processed in the plant allows us to obtain the optimum
working point even if it is out of the processed values range, by analytical and neural
computation;
Feedwater Temperature
Real Working Point
FW Temperature vs Gross Power Output
1.5e+06 1.5e+06
1.3e+06 1.3e+06
1.1e+06 1.1e+06
Repetitively
Repetitively
900000 900000
700000 700000
500000 500000
300000 300000
100000 100000
-100000 -100000
.2 6 623
156156.4 .6 6 26
156 56.8 57 6 32 29
6 35
6 We
FW 1 1 7.2 tM
Te m 15 57.4 .6 6 38 tpu
pe r 1 57 . 8 64 4 41 e r Ou
6
at u 1 57 65 0 47 Pow
re º 1 15 8 ss
C Gr o
Fig. 12 ‐ Variable real working point
‐ The early event alert is obtained from the prediction of the “next value” solved on the
previous trend basis. Evidence of the difference between the foreseen value and the
real occurred one, highlights a discrepancy or abnormal condition. This fact is useful in
order to detect potential failures earlier. The next value existing range is obtained
through a double neural computation: the first on the time line basis and the second
one based on the expected value within a certain parameter values set;
‐ Modeling hypothetical process conditions produces heuristic models, which can be
used to predict plant responses (Fig. 13). Configuration Data Base associated with the
Not Chronological process allows us to foresee the plant response in operative
conditions not previously tested;
Feedwater Temperature
Working Range Projection
Feedwater Temperature vs Gross Power Output
10000
7500
Certitude Index
10000
5000
7500
Certitude Index
2500
5000
0
2500
-2500
0 15
156 6.2
15 .4
-2500 15 6.6 ºC
6 157 6.8 ur
e
66 6 62 8 157 ra
t
65 654 0 15 .2 pe
Gr o 157 7.4
ss P 6 5 646 2 1 5 .6 T em
owe 64 6 38 4 158 7.8
r Ou
tput 63 630 FW
MW
e
Fig. 13 ‐ Variable Response Estimation
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‐ Aging evaluation, preventive maintenance requirements and equipment performance
losses can be reached by long term deviation analyzing the effect that a parameter
produces on its target, associating it with the history of performed work by the related
equipment and components.
Conclusions
This new methodology is under test at two Nuclear Power Plants, in Europe and out of Europe.
The first results are very comforting and positive, giving strength to continue with the tests
and the analysis of the data obtained. The system can become an automatic plant supervisor
capable of working methodically 24h/24h, to learn from the past and to continue working for
the complete plant life. The tool can also provide general plant tuning, improving the
operating conditions and producing economic benefits.
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