POWER February 2012 - 29

INSTRUMENTATION & CONTROL
finished certified, licensed plant to operate.
One ITAAC addresses a key part of
design: the RAP. Although various NRC
requirements and industry practices address
reliability issues of specific parts of
the plant piecemeal, there is no integrated
program that addresses plant reliability
holistically and comprehensively.
Today, the nuclear plant vendor provides
the master equipment list to meet combined
operating license requirements for the RAP.
However, this should only be considered
the bare minimum. Even something like the
maintenance rule 10 CFR 50.65, which is
triggered when the D-RAP transitions into
the O-RAP, should not be considered an adequate
RAP.
The RAP should answer the question,
" What activities make this piece of equipment
reliable? " We could extend this by
saying the RAP should include everything
working together and integrated that makes a
piece of equipment reliable, including:
■ Online sensors and monitoring devices
with which the component is equipped.
■ Periodic and regular condition-based data
taken on that equipment, such as operator
rounds and handheld instrument data.
■ Predictive analytics and monitoring
methods and software governing the
equipment.
■ The availability of spares and consumables
required by that equipment.
■ The visibility of the data and information
about that equipment to decision-makers
through the maintenance management
software or 3-D virtualization software.
■ Automation of work orders and tasks required
by the equipment.
■ The ease with which data and information
about the equipment is accessed by
the appropriate people and organized and
presented to make it most useful.
■ The critical nature of that equipment with
respect to the availability and safety of the
plant.
■ Similarity, familiarity, and uniformity of
the processes and procedures with other
nuclear plant assets under the responsibility
of the owner/operator.
Therefore, even if a comprehensive
system governing the knowledge around
the asset isn't a practical goal during the
design phase, then a comprehensive RAP
should be.
The asset management " system " also
may need to comply with, or at least consider,
various existing or pending industry
standards, including the Institute of Nuclear
Power Operations (INPO) AP913; the
Nuclear Energy Institute's (NEI's) Standard
Nuclear Performance Model, PAS 55;
probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) models;
the Electric Power Research Institute's
(EPRI) planned maintenance (PM) templates;
the Communities of Practice guideTable
3. Levels of compliance for a nuclear asset management system.
Source: Pearl Street Inc.
Corporate/Owner-operator
Corporate engineering (or remote specialists)
Centralized performance-monitoring center
Plant A
Plant B
Regulatory
MEL
Combined operating license
D-RAP
Quality assurance program
Inspections, tests, and analyses acceptance criteria (ITAACS)
Industry asset management standards
INPO AP913
PAS 55
EPRI PM templates
EPIX functions
NEI Standard Nuclear Performance Models
IAEA TECDOC 1305
Probabilistic safety assessments models
Communities of practice
Notes: EPIX = equipment performance information exchange, MEL = master equipment list.
February 2012 | POWER
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O-RAP
Plant C
lines, the Department of Energy/EPRI aging
management programs; and/or the International
Atomic Energy Agency Technical
Document 1305 or some version of a RAP
as described previously (Table 3).
Nuclear plants could also draw on the
experience of fossil-fueled plants, where
staff engineers often receive performance
and operations and maintenance-related
data and information on their smart phones
or handheld devices. One power plant today
may have several thousand process
and sensor points. A fleet of large coalfired
supercritical units may have as part
of its asset management system more than
300,000 " tags, " process data points that
represent monitored data points, calculations,
or information points. These process
sensors and data points become the
raw material of the owner/operators' asset
management program.
Oil and gas facilities also are beginning
to deploy advanced technologies, including
3-D visualization technology, so that
all the asset management data and information
is organized around actual 3-D representations
(developed by laser scanning
the actual plant) of the as-built (and everchanging)
plant.
Relevant Industry Models
Because the next generation of U.S. nuclear
unit projects are only now moving forward
into the design and project management
stage (from generic design and NRC approval
stages), the concept of designing a
suitable asset management system is only
now being considered. Here are some important
industry standards that staff should
factor into the asset management strategy.
INPO AP 913, Equipment Reliability
Standard. This standard is undoubtedly
familiar to U.S. nuclear owner/operators.
Although it certainly could be considered
the foundation for a nuclear asset management
program, today it is likely only a
piece of a more sophisticated approach. Of
critical note, though, is AP913, Appendix
G, " Considerations for Building Equipment
Reliability. " At a minimum, the design
of the asset management system-the
hardware, software, and digital elements-
should be shaped to meet these requirements,
to automate those aspects that are
repetitive (such as acceptance checks), and
to include new technologies for condition
monitoring and other functions.
Standard Nuclear Performance
Model. The Standard Nuclear Performance
Model latest revision 2007 (developed
by the INPO, NEI, and EUCG),
identifies core processes, such as plant operation,
work management, supply chain,
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