New Digital Control and Power Protection System of VR-1 Training Reactor

The contribution describes the new VR-1 training reactor control and power protection system at the Czech Technical University in Prague. The control system provides safety and control functions, calculates average values of the important variables and sends data and system status to the human-machine interface. The upgraded control system is based on a high quality industrial PC. The operating system of the PC is the Microsoft Windows XP with the real time support RTX of the VentureCom Company. The software was developed according to requirements in MS Visual C. The independent power protection system is a component of the reactor safety (protection) system with high quality and reliability requirements. The digital system is redundant; each channel evaluates the reactor power and the velocity of power changes and provides safety functions. The digital part of the channel is multiprocessor-based. The software was developed with respect to nuclear standards. The software design was coded in the C language regarding the NRC restrictions. Configuration management, verification and validation accompanied the software development. Both systems were thoroughly tested. Firstly, the non active tests were carried out. During these tests, the active core of the reactor was subcritical; the input signals were generated from HPIB and VXI controlled instruments to simulate different operational and safety events. The software for instruments control and tests evaluation utilized Agilent VEE development system. After the successful non active checking, the active tests followed.