Nuclear power plant through automation

Abstract

Nowadays the nuclear power plant system operational in domestic as well as foreign countries is generating power in terms of thousands of Kilo watts. These power plants are usually placed in a far off places away from human population so as to avoid any radiation leak casualties. This power generated is transferred to urban cities by means of overhead power lines. The existing power plants have many difficulties they are. humans are involved for operational activities on the floor they are exposed to hazardous environment. Which may cause medical problems in a long terms for them. In case of natural calamity like earthquake or storms the system cannot be shut and power generation continues so there aging a system is needed to deal with necessary changes to adapt. Also the power generated should be kept at ideal value which in all of the power plants existing is fluctuating. The idea of the project is to develop a system an automated nuclear power plant to provide the better way to existing power plants in term of efficiency , output, input, etc by controlling the plant through automation. Nuclear power is one of the ways that we can design an efficient sustainable future. Automation is the primary system used to assist operators in the task of monitoring and controlling nuclear power plants (NPP). Automation performs tasks such as assessing the status of the plant's operations as well as making real time life critical situational specific decisions. While the advantages and disadvantages of automation are well studied in variety of domains, accidents remind us that there is still vulnerability to unknown variables. This paper will look at the effects of automation within three NPP accidents and incidents and will consider why automation failed in preventing these accidents from occurring. It will also review the accidents at the Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima Daiichi NPP's in order to determine where better use of automation could have resulted in a more desirable outcome.