Instrumentation and Control Working Group

Mission

The mission of the PWROG Instrumentation and Control (I&C) Working Group (ICWG) is to provide a forum for the identification and resolution of generic instrumentation and control issues for Combustion Engineering (CE), Westinghouse, and Babcock and Wilcox (B&W) Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) plants. Activities of the I&C Working Group may encompass, but are not limited to:

1. I&C systems equipment reliability improvements
2. I&C systems obsolescence, including programs focused on maintaining existing I&C systems, and programs to evaluate or develop alternatives
3. I&C systems performance enhancements including digital upgrades
4. I&C design bases issues

Values

I&C Systems are critical plant systems for which unscheduled maintenance causes major adjustments to planned outage schedules or even forced shutdowns. As plants age, the importance of comprehensive system life cycle management planning is gaining further attention. System test reduction and calibration interval extension are providing cost and man-rem savings to plants. The PWROG I&C Working Group is the industry leader in addressing many of these topics for vintage control and protection instrumentation systems. The ICWG’s meetings provide a forum through which many system equipment reliability improvements have been developed, critical Operating Experience (OE) presented, and best practice preventive maintenance discussed. Plants which play an active role in the ICWG have seen measurable improvements in system reliability.