Research And Development Of The Integration Test Equipment For The Protection Logic Cabinet Of The Low-temperature Reactor

Low-temperature reactor is a new type of Nuclear reactors developed by TsinghuaUniversity. It is a kind of advanced reactor with inherent safety and many advancedfeatures, such as integrative disposition, natural circulation water cooling, homeostaticpressure, triple loop and passive hydraulic system of control rod drives. So, this newtype of reactor is used in many fields, like electricity generation, desalination,engineering steam generation, heating, etc. Nowadays, with natural resources beingincreasingly deficient and the environment damaged, the low-temperature reactor hashuge potential for application.The digital Reactor Protection System (RPS) is more advantageous over thetraditional analog Reactor Protection System in reliability, stability and accuracy, andcan realize more complicated logical protection function. However, the digitalization ofRPS has made its safety reviews more difficult jobs. According to relevant regulations,during the lifecycles of the development process of the digital RPS, softwareVerification&Validation (V&V) must be carried out, and one important stage is thecomprehensive integration test of the RPS.The background of this paper is based on the integration test of the RPS of thelow-temperature reactor. By researching and developing the integration testing devicefor the RPS of the low-temperature reactor, a useful approach to satisfy therequirements of software V&V is provided in this paper, and makes a contribution to thepopularization of the low-temperature reactor techniques, thus has great applicationvalue.In this paper, an integration testing device is developed which can provide all theinput signals for the RPS of low-temperature reactor and acquire its response. In thisway, the performance of the RPS can be evaluated. The device is based on the Virtualinstrumentation techniques, and can realize four kinds of function including manualtesting, reliability evaluation, test of the accuracy and test of the response time. Besides,the device is with good universality. Different requirements can be satisfied with only arewrite of the software.The integration testing device developed in the paper is fully functional, easy tooperate, with readable human–computer interface and good universality. Not only do the device enhance the testing efficiency greatly, but also provide a useful approach forthe test of the long-term reliability of the RPS. It lays a solid foundation for thedevelopment of other testing devices.