R&D and reliability analysis of a digital protection system for nuclear heating reactors

This paper discusses a scheme of digital Reactor Protection System (RPS). Advanced parallel processing channels, consisting of a microprocessor based unit and a General Array Logic (GAL)-based unit have been configured in each of the redundant trains to eliminate the risk of common mode failure of digital RPSs through the way of diversified equipment. Also several digital techniques are also applied to improve the system design. For example, the Voltage/Frequency (V/F) converter is applied to achieve the digitization of the measurement channel. GAL components greatly simplify the hardware ci rcuit design. Two types of communication buses are designed to improve the reliability of data transmission. By all these means, the reliability of RPS can be expected to achieve a great improvement.