Special Focus: Quality Assurance
Using the customised safety case approach
Pontus Ryd and Andreas Knutsson look at successful quality assurance and licensing in nuclear power plants upgrades/uprates with a customised safety case approach.
Pontus Ryd y Andreas Knutsson examinan los controles de calidad eficaces y las licencias en la actualización/repotenciación de las centrales nucleares con un enfoque de plan de seguridad personalizado.
Pontus Ryd und Andreas Knutsson untersuchen die erfolgreiche Qualitätssicherung und Lizenzierung von Kernkraftwerkssanierungen und -verbesserungen mit einem individuellen Sicherheitsanalysekonzept.
Fig. 1. The safety/quality areas can be compared to beams of light, enlightening different parts of the project scope (represented by the box – in reality often not that easy to clearly define). Each area focuses on certain aspects, some areas are ‘wide’ with more diffuse light and some areas are more focused with deeper penetration. By forming several areas assessing the scope from different angles and focus, adequate coverage is assured.
M
ajor modernisations and power uprate projects in existing nuclear power plants (NPPs) bring major challenges – increased design complexity,
fulfillment of modern safety requirements, extensive analyses and assessments required by experienced nuclear scientists and engineers coincident with the nuclear industry being in the middle of a significant generation change. All this under the undisputable requirements on adequate safety/quality assurance and also delivered within estimated time and costs. Te challenges call for effective methods and processes as well as high individual and team competence. Experiences from providing specialist services in systems engineering for the power and process industry and many of the major NPP modernisations performed in Sweden since the mid-1990s, have lead to the development and application of a generalised safety case approach and new insights and recommendations for successful requirements management (RM)
and configuration management (CM). It has proven fruitful, both in assuring proper design control and in safety/quality assurance and demonstration. It has also facilitated both internal and regulator communications. With the approach proposed, properly applied and integrated early in a project, significant reductions in both licensing and time/cost risks should be within reach for both on-going projects and those about to start.
A safety case consists of: explicit safety/quality
requirements; evidence that the requirements have been met; argument linking the evidence to the requirements.
Both the argument and the evidence are essential and the safety case is effective in assuring oneself as well as stakeholders, such as regulators, that the safety/quality goals both will be, and finally have been reached.
A generalisation of the safety case concept in
a new integration methodology, that addresses the complete scope of a project (nowadays often including both important human and work
www.engineerlive.com 47
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52