ASSESSMENT OF DIGITAL INSTRUMENTATION AND CONTROL AT IRSN: PRINCIPLES AND APPLICATION TO EPR FLAMANVILLE 3

摘要

This paper presents the principles used by IRSN to perform the technical assessment of the digital I&C of the EPR Flamanville 3 reactor (FA3). An historical background introduces the digital technologies which now equip the Protection Systems of 24 French reactors, and their management since their introduction more than 25 years ago. The evolution of the instrumentation and control technologies through successive reactor series is briefly reminded. Then the specificities of digital technologies about failures due to development errors are presented, and their consequences on the principles of IRSN's assessments are exposed. The need for tools supporting the analyses is introduced. Complementary aspects of these assessments are then presented through their application to Flamanville 3, mentioning IRSN's main findings as well as the corresponding official requests made by the French regulator. In conclusion, directions for future work on Flamanville 3 are mentioned, and the paper finally presents IRSN's view on the mid term evolution of digital I&C systems and of their assessment. Please note that this paper is devoted to the digital aspects of I&C, thus traditional hardware aspects such as environmental qualification are not addressed