Control Rooms
Westinghouse’s deep experience and knowledge of nuclear plant operation provides an excellent framework for the design and commission of control rooms.
Nuclear plant modernizations under Long Term Operation programs, as well as new actors in the nuclear industry, could benefit from our experience and continuous technology improvements in this area, supporting new control rooms as well as full / partial modernizations.
Key capabilities in this area include:
- Development of mechanical and electrical designs, taking into consideration the most restrictive Human Factors Engineering Principles
- Reverse engineering for instrument obsolescence
- Full-range capabilities for the actual manufacturing of control rooms, under NQA-1 as required
- Qualification activities to ensure control rooms' safe operation, including seismic, EMC and environmental qualification, also including commercial grade dedication for those components that need to be replaced due to obsolescence
- Testing, commissioning and licensing under the applicable regulatory framework, with proven experience worldwide
Human Factors Engineering (HFE)
Westinghouse provides a full range of Human Factors Analysis and Design solutions for operating and new plants.
Digital interfaces bring a remarkable advantage, as they are easily adaptable, but these advanced interfaces could also bring significant changes in the concept of operation, potentially increasing human error. In this scenario, HFE arises as one of Westinghouse's core strengths, putting human capabilities and actuation in the center of the design process instead of focusing only on machine capabilities.
HFE activities are becoming of extreme relevance as a key element to support ongoing modernization initiatives of operating plants, as well as the licensing process of new plants. For this purpose, Westinghouse offers a tested methodology according to US and European standards, implementing HFE principles and criteria supporting new designs and modernization processes.
HFE activities are focused on the following objectives:
- Incorporate lessons learned into the design process
- Increase tasks assigned to the machine reducing the operating workload
- Design advance interfaces for plant awareness
- Licensing new technologies as computerized procedures or ecological displays
- Obtain early results during design phase by means of multistage validations methodologies
Procedures Development and Emergency Management
Westinghouse provides a full range of capabilities, expertise and reliability to ensure effective and efficient procedures maintenance and development activities. Westinghouse supports the procedures work of different plant disciplines, such as I&C, Maintenance or Engineering, with core expertise and added value in our capabilities to support operation procedures development, maintenance and update.
In coordination with operations, training and simulation organizations, Westinghouse provides development and update of normal (NOP), abnormal (AOP) and emergency (EOP) operating procedures, severe accident guidelines (SAG), extensive damage mitigation guidelines (EDMG) and flexible support guidelines (FLEX).
For emergency management, Westinghouse addresses our customer needs in all different aspects, which among others, may include:
- Internal and external emergency plans update
- Customized software tools for emergency management, providing plant status and reports to fill in from the different departments, the evolutions of the mitigation strategies and specific modules for severe accident management
- Emergency Drills development, including scenarios and radiological calculations
- Design and operation of Emergency Support Centers, including technical support and centralized storage facilities with the backup portable equipment for implementation of FLEX mitigation strategies
Organizational Performance Improvement
Improvement efforts are not always effective because of three reasons: we are not aware of the problem; we do not understand the problem; we implement improvement actions not aligned with real causes.
Identifying what is really happening in your organization, understanding why you have strengths and weaknesses, and implementing proper corrective actions are the key factors for Organizational Performance Improvement.
The Westinghouse model defines the basis and factors related to the improvement of organizational performance in search of a safe and reliable operation. We apply a set of solutions derived from several sources: best practice industry evaluations based on assessment methods; explanations using root cause methodologies of why problems occur; actions from industry operating experience; and lessons learned from other projects.
Collaboration agreements with organizations like the Institute of Nuclear Power Operators allow us to apply state of the art solutions. In addition, Organizational and Safety Culture Evaluations together with Leadership and Human Performance assessments allow Westinghouse to propose customized solutions to improve overall performance, working together with the client to monitor the implementation and effectiveness of the solutions.
Nuclear Electrical Equipment
Westinghouse has a combination of intellectual property, engineering skills and experience not available elsewhere in the industry. Our solutions enhance the reliability of the plant control and safety systems through an integrated, plant-wide approach consisting of product development, design and assembly and testing of advanced nuclear safety electrical cabinets and products.
Long-term operation of operating plants and the construction of new plants demand electrical nuclear safety cabinets. However, most of the conventional manufacturers abandoned the nuclear industry long ago. Westinghouse offers our expertise working with conventional suppliers to provide a nuclear product for commissioning and licensing worldwide.
Westinghouse also offers reverse engineering of nuclear electrical equipment.
