​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Integrated Risk Assessment for Digital Instrumentation and Control

Goal​​​

To support licensing of the transition from analog instrumentation and control (I&C) technologies to digital I&C technologies in a nuclear power facility.

Integrated risk-assessment for digital I&C assures the long-term safety and reliability of vital systems, reduces uncertainty in licensing costs and time, and supports integration of digital systems in the plant and more-efficient upgrades of technology for the entire life cycle of nuclear power plants.​

O​​​utcome

Researchers will develop an integrated risk assessment framework for delivering a technical basis to support effective and secure digital I&C technologies for digital upgrades/designs at nuclear power plants. The framework will provide: (1) A best-estimate, risk-informed capability to address new technical digital issues quantitatively, focusing on software common cause failures (CCFs) in safety-critical digital I&C systems, (2) A common and modularized platform for digital I&C designers, software developers, cybersecurity analysts, and plant engineers to predict and prevent risk in the early design stage of digital I&C systems, (3) A technical bases and risk-informed insights to assist users to address and fulfill the risk-informed alternatives for evaluation of CCFs in safety-critical digital I&C systems, (4)​ A risk-informed tool that offers a capability of design architecture evaluation of various digital I&C systems to support system design decisions in diversity and redundancy applications.​​

Planned Major Accomplishments

• Complete a collaborative project with the nuclear industry on digital I&C reliability analysis; further develop and demonstrate the proposed framework in the evaluation of various digital I&C design architectures in terms of risk assessment and economic efficiencies.​

Reports​

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