Plant Improvement Project for South Ukraine NPP- Lot 2

The main task of the "Data Acquisition and Processing System" (DAPS) is to monitor and process the primary and the secondary water chemistry of the nuclear power plant and is aimed at improving the primary and secondary water chemistry of the Units. The existing monitoring system did not support the operator in diagnosis of deviations of chemical parameters from their assigned ranges of values.

The subject of the project was the replacement of the existing system with a new system designed for data acquisition and processing of defined chemical parameters of primary and the secondary water.

The new system included:

• the acquisition of important chemistry and process parameters, their processing, storage and display,
• the comparison of the measured parameters with the standard values,
• the generation of alarms when the set-points are either reached or approached,
• the diagnostic analysis for revealing the causes of deviations from controlled chemistry parameters in order to timely warn the operators about the requested corrective actions.

These various functions had to be performed by the DAPS and required the procurement of new material in the frame of this project:

• chemical monitors for the acquisition of the parameters which were not available by the existing monitoring system of the SU NPP Units,
• an Expert System for the diagnosis of the deviation of chemical parameters from their assigned ranges of values.

The Expert function was to be implemented by processing the chemistry parameters using logic algorithms, which will take in consideration the various parameters involved in the deviations.
The diagnosis algorithms elaboration was to be based on the comparison of the obtained results with requirements of new Ukrainian codes for the primary and secondary water chemistry

The Data Acquisition and Processing System is composed of two different parts:

1. The chemical monitoring equipment, which supplement or replace existing Units equipment, providing the DAPS Expert System with fast and reliable data allowing proper identification of the causes of the deviations.
2. One Expert System in each Unit 1, 2, 3 whose function is to diagnose chemistry deviations based on the chemistry and physical data collected from the monitors and to propose correspondent corrective actions to the operator.

The project included:

• supply of the basic set of equipment
• the supply of spare parts
• design, manufacture, acceptance tests, certification, delivery, supervision of installation and commissioning and training of End user personnel

The project started with the development of the Technical Specifications in 2004 under the service contract On-site Assistance to South Ukraine NPP – Bridging contract - U1.02/01. The contract with the supplier of the system, ALL Trade SRL, Italy, was signed in December 2004. The modernization included the installation of chemistry monitoring equipment and expert systems in the primary and secondary sides of the Units 1, 2 and 3. The equipment was installed tested and commissioned and the Provisional Acceptance Certificate was signed in November 2006.

The achievement of this project improves the chemistry of the Units and facilitates the diagnostic of the operators when a deviation of the chemistry specification occurs. The system improves the chemistry of the Units and facilitates the diagnostic of the operators when a deviation of the chemistry specification occurs.