Salem Nuclear Station Advanced Digital Feedwater Control System

Salem Nuclear Station Advanced Digital Feedwater Control System
Hancock's Bridge, New Jersey
Client: PSEG Nuclear

Project Highlights:

Sargent & Lundy worked closely with PSEG Nuclear’s design engineering, system engineering, maintenance, operations, and installation organizations in efforts to satisfy the requirements of all of the stakeholders.
The station successfully installed, tested, and commissioned the new ADFCS for Unit 2 with minimal impact to the refueling outage critical path.

Project Description:

Advanced Digital Feedwater Control Systems provide steam generator level control via feedwater regulating valves and provide steam pressure control via atmospheric relief vales. Sargent & Lundy supported Salem Nuclear Station with the engineering and design of the ADFCS upgrade. The completed design change package included updates to over 250 plant design drawings, multiple revisions to station design calculations, and incorporation of new vendor documents and software configuration control documents into the PSEG document management system. Upon completion of the design change package, the station successfully installed, tested, and commissioned the new ADFCS with minimal impact during the outage.

The Salem nuclear station installed a Westinghouse WDPF-based advanced digital feedwater control system (ADFCS) in the mid-1990s. The ADFCS provides steam generator level control via feedwater regulating valves and via setting the speed for the steam generator feed pump (SGFP). In addition, the ADFCS provides steam pressure control via atmospheric relief valves. The WDPF-based ADFCS included custom circuit cards that interfaced with the existing control console pushbutton stations. These custom circuit cards later became obsolete and were no longer being supported by the vendor, and their continued use would have resulted in operational challenges if hardware failures occurred.

The station elected to upgrade the ADFCS to an Emerson Ovation-based system, also provided by Westinghouse. In addition to the functions previously provided by the ADFCS, the Ovation-based ADFCS upgrade added the SGFP speed control loop (replaced an obsolete Woodward controller), added additional redundant sensors/probes, and upgraded control room interfaces to include a graphical user interface.

The Salem Unit 2 upgrade was installed during a refueling outage in fall 2015, and the Salem Unit 2 upgrade installation is scheduled to be completed during a refueling outage in spring 2016.

Project Scope:

Sargent & Lundy provided engineering support throughout the project’s life cycle, from project conception through installation and testing. This Sargent & Lundy support included the following activities:

Producing a conceptual design study to aid PSEG Nuclear in defining the scope of the ADFCS upgrade
Preparing a procurement specification
Developing the design change package
Providing markups to the affected maintenance and operations procedures.
Drafting the modification acceptance test procedures
Providing onsite engineering support during the installation and testing activities