NEUP DE-FOA-0000613
Funding Opportunity Announcement
Project Narrative
Project narrative is 8 pages maximum including cover page, table of content,
Project Objectives
We propose to establish the infrastructure for a modern nuclear instrumentation laboratory that will attract and instruct students in instrumentation and control (I & C) methods to serve the nuclear power fleet, national labs, or technology based industries for the next generation. The emphasis will be the use of real time digital instrumentation in both an education and research environment. Our objective will be to use the support from this proposal to construct 5 training stations and one end station for high neutron fluence research containing the digital technologies used in national research labs and industry.
According to the IAEA, about 40% of the worlds operating nuclear reactors have modernized their analog based instrumentation and control systems with digital technology.
ISU's NS&E program
Idaho State University has a wide breadth nuclear science and engineering program encompassing disciplines in Health Physics, Nuclear Engineering, and fundamental Nuclear physics. Idaho State University's Health Physics program is housed in the Nuclear Engineering department and offers graduates degrees as well as an ABET accredited Bachelor of Science degree in Health Physics. The Nuclear Engineering department offers an ABET accredited Bachelors of Science degree and houses a training and research nuclear reactor (AGN-201). A fundamental Nuclear physics facility, known as the Idaho Accelerator Center, has an established record research in areas ranging the radiochemistry of medical isotope production and applied nuclear physics in cooperation with the Idaho National Lab. ISU's NS&E program has over 20 faculty and 50 students working in the Nuclear arena.
Proposal's Impacts on NS&E, R&D and Education
ISU's NS&E program and the nuclear workforce share the problem of equipment modernization. For more than 5 years, a joint continuing education program between ISU and the Idaho National Lab has been working to transfer knowledge to their nuclear workforce from ISU. We propose to take the next step in this knowledge transfer by creating a modern instrumentation laboratory and end station to educate students, pooled from ISU's NS&E programs as well as INL's nuclear workforce, with instrumentation and control (I & C) skill sets that support the nations intellectual dependence on Nuclear Engineering and Nuclear Science. In addition to adding a practical training element to the continuing education program between ISU and the Idaho National lab, the modern instrumentation laboratory can facilitate the exchange of knowledge between current members of the workforce and those seeking to enter it.
As recommended in the June 2008 American Physical Society report "Readiness of the US Nuclear Workforce for 21st Century Challenges", "Stabilizing the long-term funding and management of nuclear science and
engineering education programs, in particular for the university research and training
reactor facilities that are so important to the education of nuclear scientists and
engineers. It is essential that this be done – the number of such programs cannot be
allowed to diminish further."
The requested equipment and instrumentation has a high potential to improve or expand the research and training capabilities of the nuclear education program at ISU.
The skill sets honed by this digital instrumetation lab will help to modernize the nuclear work force for current systems as well as the US-EPR, the APWR, and the ESBWR, new nuclear plants under consideration.
Three new designs—the US-EPR, the U.S. version of the EPR, by AREVA NP; the APWR by MHI; and the ESBWR by General Electric-Hitachi (GEH)—are briefly described here to illustrate the current state in digital I&C architectures in NPPs.
ISU has recently expanded the research capabilities with the acquisition of a 200,000 sq. ft. facility to house both academic and privatized research activities.
A the brightest students to the nuclear professions and supporting the Nation’s intellectual capital in Nuclear Engineering and relevant Nuclear Science, such as Health Physics, Nuclear Materials Science, Radiochemistry, and Applied Nuclear Physics Improving relevant university and college infrastructures for conducting R&D and educating students
Supporting NE’s goal of facilitating the transfer of knowledge from an aging
nuclear workforce to next generation of workers
http://engr.isu.edu/nehp/ne/facilities/
Merit Review Criterion
(a) The creation of a modern instrumentation and controls lab will substantially expand the research and training capabilities of ISU's NS&E program. The skills learned can easily be transferred to the testing and training reactor facility operated by the Nuclear Engineering department. However the most aggressive expansion will be in the creation of an accelerator driven high neutron fluence facility. This proposal will provide the end station equipment as well as test cell that will allow an existing accelerator located at the IAC to become a high fluence neutron source for both research and education. This end station will be equipped with a fission chamber that is currently used for "in the core" measurements of neutron fluence in the nuclear industry. The commissioning of this facility will open the door to further research in neutron flux detector development as well as materials studies.
(b) While the 20 faculty serving ISU's current NS&E programs provide an wide breadth of intellectual support for the proposed modern instrumentation lab and end station facility, the core personnel responsible for project execution have expertise in data acquisition and accelerator driven systems. The PI has more than 5 years of experience with the digital acquisition systems used in intermediate nuclear energy national physics labs and has installed identical systems in his research lab. The Co-PI has spent the last two years configuring and operating an accelerator based radio isotope end station. The Co-PI will transfer those experiences to the development of a high neutron fluence end station that is also accelerator driven in cooperation with accelerator physicists at the Idaho Accelerator Center. Two other faculty members will develop the experiments to be performed at the five training stations in the digital instrumentation and controls lab.
(c) We anticipate that the digital instrumentation and control lab will become the second in a series of labs to train students in nuclear instrumentation and control. A current instrumentation lab trains students on the operating principles of detectors and uses analog signal processing to drive counters to quantify the activity of radioactive sources. This "analog" instrumentation lab has been taught by faculty from the Nuclear Physics and Health Physics programs for more than 5 years. More than 10 students have been taking the class each time it was offered. We anticipate at least 5 of those students would continue their education and enroll in the "digital" instrumentation and controls lab.
(d) The digital instrumentation and control lab will be equipped with several modern electronics modules to facilitate the objective of this proposal. Th ISU physics department currently has 5 VME based crates that are used to house digital modules for processing analog input signals to a digital format that is available through the back plane of the VME crate. The physics department has recently purchased 5 modern micro-controllers for the VME crates which use the latest intel processors to control and transfer data from digital modules in the VME crate. We would like to continue the modernization by purchasing another VME system for a research based station as well as several digital modules for all 6 VME systems. The Idaho Accelerator Center has recently deployed a new linac in a heavily shielded room with a high current for medical isotope production. We propose adding to this facility a target system optimized to produces neutron fluences of at least n/cm/sec with a predicted maximum fluence of n/cm/sec.
The following evaluation criteria and weights will be used to evaluate applications submitted under this FOA: Rating criteria include demonstrations of increasing or enhancing research or teaching capabilities. a. (50%) Potential of the requested equipment, instrumentation, modification, or service to improve or expand the research and training capabilities; b. (20%) Adequacy of the number and qualifications of key persons developing and carrying out the project, and the qualification of project personnel assessing project results and disseminating findings. c. (20%) Amount of student and faculty usage of the capabilities, and the amount and variety of research and/or services actually provided by the facility; and d. (10%) Reasonableness of the proposed equipment or instrumentation to achieve the proposed objectives.
Project Timetable
The support structure for this funding opportunity asks for the equipment to be acquired within one year of the award date. All digital equipment purchase orders will be issued within the first 3 months of the award. Custom equipment will be under contract with the appropriate vendor within the first 6 months of the award. Installation of all digital equipment is expected to be complete 9 months after the award. Commission of all digital instrumentation stations will be completed at the end of the first year and the high fluence neutron end station target will be installed.
| Month^* | Goal |
| 3 | Complete equipment purchase order for equipment |
| 6 | Begin equipment installation |
| 9 | Complete digital equipment installation and begin commissioning |
| 9 | Complete digital equipment commissioning and high power target installation |
- Months after award is received.
Roles of Participants
| Particpant | Goal |
| A | Order and install equipment and prepare lab manuals |
| B | Supervise design and construction of a high power target |
| C | Commission equipment and prepare lab manuals |
| D | Commission equipment and prepare lab manuals |
Facilities and other resources
The PIs have created a Laboratory for Detector Science at Idaho State University which houses the groups infrastructure for detector development projects. The 1200 sq.~ft. Laboratory is equipped with flow hoods, a darkroom, and a laminar flow hood used to provide a clean room environment sufficient to construct small prototype detectors. A CODA based data acquisition system with ADC, TDC, and scaler VME modules has been installed to record detector performance measurements. The PIs also established a student machine shop containing a mill, a lathe, drill press, table saw, and band which occupies its own space for the physics department to share. A 400 sq.~ft., class 10,000 clean room has been constructed in ISU's physics department;. These facilities have a history of being used to construct detectors, measure detector prototype performance, and design electronic circuits.
The Idaho Accelerator Center (IAC) is located less than a mile away from campus and ten operating accelerators as well as a machine and electronics shop with a permanent staff of 8 Ph.D.s and 6 engineers. Among its many accelerator systems, the Center houses a Linac capable of delivering 20~ns to 2~$\mu$s electron pulses with an instantaneous current of 80 mA up to an energy of 25 MeV at pulse rates up to 1~kHz. The IAC and JLab are currently constructing an accelerator to test a candidate positron source system for JLab. A full description of the facility is available at the web site (www.iac.isu.edu).
Requested Equipment
Utilization
Project Summary/Abstract
We propose to establish the infrastructure for a modern nuclear instrumentation laboratory that will attract and instruct students in methods directly applicable to nuclear engineering and physics related applications. Specifically, laboratory will be used for hands on training of the skill sets appropriate for serving the nuclear power fleet, national labs, or technology based industries for the next generation. The emphasis will be on real time insrumentation using modern digital equipment.
According to the IAEA, about 40% of the worlds operating nuclear reactors have modernized their analog based instrumentation and control systems with digital technology.
Budget Justification
| Cost | Description |
| $50k | Target (Valeriia) |
| $30k | Target Enclosure (Valeriia) |
| $20k | beam monitors (FC Yujong) |
| $30k | GE fast and slow neutron detectors |
| $110 k | 5 DAQ workstation enhancements ($10k NIM modules, $1k lemo cables, $12k VME module, $2k host computer) |
| $50 k | 1 End Station DAQ system ($6k VME crate, $4k ROC, $3k trigger supervisor, $14k NIM modules, $1k cables, $20 k VME modules, $2k host computer,) |
http://www.ge-mcs.com/en/nuclear-reactor-instrumentation.html
Classroom experiments
Scintillator based neutron detection (Dan)
ToF?
Identification of nuclei using gamma spectroscopy (Valeriia)
HpGE
Neutron detection using ionization chambers (Tony)
He-3 tubes, fission chambers
Solid state neutron detectors (Tony?)
Gadolinium
2008 reports
http://www.aps.org/policy/reports/popa-reports/upload/Nuclear-Readiness-Report-FINAL-2.pdf
Readiness of the U.S. Nuclear Workforce for 21st Century Challenges
A Report from the APS Panel on Public Affairs Committee on Energy and Environment , June 2008
pg 22 recommendation 7.2 1b
File:NUREG-CR-6992USNRC 2010 InsturnControlsinNucPowerPlantUpdate 2008.pdf
pg 83
"In the US-EPR, many subsystems within overall I&C systems are implemented with either the TXS or TXP platform, with some exceptions of hardwired implementations."
1997 report
ISBN: 978-0-309-05732-5, 128 pages, 8.5 x 11, paperback (1997)Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems in Nuclear Power Plants: Safety and Reliability Issues Committee on Application of Digital Instrumentation and Control Systems to Nuclear Power Plant Operations and Safety, National Research Council
"Conclusion 2. The lack of actual design and implementation of large I&C systems for U.S. nuclear power plants makes it difficult to use learning from experience as a basis for im- proving how the nuclear industry and the USNRC deal with systems aspects."
MELTAC
section 9.3.2.1 on pg 91 of the 2008 report above indicates that the Instrumentation and Controls systems for the nuclear fleet may be based on the Mitsubishi Electric Total Advanced Controller Platform (MELTAC)
according to
http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML0930/ML093010325.pdf
On March 2 - 6, 2009, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) completed an audit of
the Mitsubishi Electric Total Advanced Controller (MELTAC) digital platform at Mitsubishi
Electric Corporation’s (MELCO) Kobe, Japan facility. The MELTAC digital platform is described
in Topical Report MUAP-07005-P, “Safety System Digital Platform -MELTAC-,” Revision 3,
which was submitted by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI). MELCO is the supplier of the
MELTAC platform to MHI. The enclosed report documents the audit findings that were
discussed on March 6, 2009, with Mr. Makoto Takashima of MHI, Mr. Katsumi Akagi of MELCO,
and members of their staff.
pg 14-17 has some topical points for this proposal.
Westinghouse Training Facility
http://www.nuclearcounterfeit.com/?tag=simulator
Westinghouse Celebrates Grand Opening of First-of-a-Kind Startup Test Engineer Training Facility
August 30, 2010 by admin
Filed under General, Westinghouse Electric Company
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PITTSBURGH, Aug. 27 /PRNewswire/ — Westinghouse Electric Company celebrated the grand opening of a First-of-a-Kind Startup Test Engineer Training Facility at its headquarters in Cranberry Township, Pa. on August 25, 2010. The grand opening celebration included a ribbon-cutting ceremony, followed by facility tours featuring the facility’s diagnostic lab room that comes complete with a flow loop.
The Westinghouse Startup Test Engineer (WeSTETM) Training Facility will be used to train Westinghouse employees, customers and industry representatives on the proper testing and safe maintenance of Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear power plant systems, structures, and components. The Westinghouse Startup Test Engineer Training Facility is comprised of a state-of-the-art AP1000 simulator that replicates the AP1000 digital control, protection and monitoring systems for component testing and diagnostics training. In addition to the simulator, which is comprised of a digital lab room and a flow loop lab room, the facility includes two traditional training classrooms.
Deva Chari, senior vice president, Nuclear Power Plants, cut the ribbon at the entrance of the facility with the assistance of several leaders from Westinghouse Electric Company.
“The opening of this Startup Test Engineer Training Facility is an exciting step in the nuclear renaissance. This facility serves as an important opportunity for our customers, our industry and Westinghouse to provide a high-quality Startup Test Engineer training and qualification program for the Westinghouse AP1000TM nuclear power plant,” said Mr. Chari.
The first class of 26 students will begin training at this facility at Westinghouse headquarters on August 30. The training facility has the capacity to train approximately 100 students each year. Each group of students will complete the training within approximately four months. After the training and qualification program is complete, students will be qualified as Westinghouse Startup Test Engineers (WeSTEs). WeSTE qualification exceeds the minimum requirements for Level III Test Engineers as specified in ANSI/ASME NQA-1.
The above training facility is a level above the fundamental DAQ training to be received with this program. Students trained in fundamental DAQ could be fed into the above training facility after graduation.