Further contract for St Lucie simulator upgrade

L3-MAPPS has been awarded a contract to replace the 30-year-old input/output system on the full-scope simulator at the St Lucie nuclear power plant in Florida. Last year the company was awarded multiple contracts to upgrade the simulator.

L3-MAPPS has been awarded a contract to replace the 30-year-old input/output (I/O) system on the full-scope simulator at the St Lucie nuclear power plant in Florida. Last year the company was awarded multiple contracts to upgrade the simulator.

The control room simulator of St Lucie 2 (Image: L-3 MAPPS)

The I/O system is responsible for relaying operator actions to the simulation computer and for providing operators with visual clues - such as indications and alarms - to operate the plant.

Under the contract with Florida Power & Light (FP&L), L-3 MAPPS will install new compact I/O hardware with its Orchid Input Output software for both the St Lucie 2 full-scope simulator's main I/O system and its radiation monitoring I/O system. The project is already underway and expected to be completed by the end of 2015.

L-3 MAPPS said that similar compact I/O systems have already been installed at the full-scope simulators of the Diablo Canyon and McGuire plant in the USA, Argentina's Embalse plant and at the Koeberg plant in South Africa. The same technology is currently being implemented at China's Daya Bay and Belgium Tihange 1 full-scope simulators.

In August 2013, L-3 MAPPS announced that it had been awarded a series of contracts by FP&L to upgrade the full-scope simulator at St Lucie. These included rehosting the simulation software using its Orchid simulation environment and replacing old analog controllers with new digital ones. In addition, L-3 MAPPS was to replace the simulator's current Linux I/O gateway computer with a Windows I/O computer, interfacing the simulation server with the original I/O system delivered with the simulator in the mid-1980s.

Michael Baughman, training manager at the St Lucie plant, said, "The I/O system replacement is an important component of our strategy to ensure that the simulator's reliability and maintainability remain at the highest levels in support of the long-term operation of the St Lucie plant."

The two-unit St Lucie plant comprises two pressurized water reactors, which began operating in 1976 and 1983 respectively. An extended power uprate was completed at St Lucie 1 and 2 in 2012 which raised the power output from each of the reactors from some 853 MWe to 1002 MWe.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News