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.
Outcome
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, 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 basis and risk-informed insights to help users 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.
