Westinghouse Receives Final NRC Approval for Advanced Logic System® Safety System Solution
Pittsburgh, Pa. (PRWEB) September 18, 2013 -- Westinghouse Electric Company announced today that it received the final Safety Evaluation Report from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the Advanced Logic System® (ALS) platform, the company’s next generation safety system instrumentation and control solution for operating plant safety system upgrades and new nuclear plant opportunities.
The ALS solution is a logic-based platform that relies on simple hardware architecture instead of using a microprocessor or software for operation. The ALS platform utilizes logic implemented through field programmable gate array technology, and has been approved by the U.S. NRC as an acceptable approach to address diversity and defense-in-depth concerns within digital safety system applications. The ALS platform also is scalable, as ALS-based solutions can provide single-system replacements or full safety instrumentation and control replacement.
“This is a significant milestone for the nuclear industry, as the ALS platform represents the next generation of safety system solutions,” said David Howell, Westinghouse senior vice president of Automation and Field Services. “The ALS platform is simple, reliable and maintainable for decades to come for both new and operating nuclear power plants.”
The ALS solution targets safety-critical control systems, where reliability and integrity are of the highest importance. The ALS platform incorporates advanced features to allow for diagnostics, testability and modularity. Diagnostics and testing capabilities are designed into the ALS platform to provide a systematic approach to maintaining and testing the system. It is designed to be at the appropriate level of complexity to achieve high reliability and integrity and allow flexibility to target multiple safety-critical applications within a given plant.
Westinghouse Electric Company, a group company of Toshiba Corporation (TKY:6502), is the world's pioneering nuclear energy company and is a leading supplier of nuclear plant products and technologies to utilities throughout the world. Westinghouse supplied the world's first pressurized water reactor in 1957 in Shippingport, Pa., U.S. Today, Westinghouse technology is the basis for approximately one-half of the world's operating nuclear plants, including more than 50 percent of those in Europe.
Sheila Holt, Westinghouse Electric Company, LLC, http://www.westinghousenuclear.com, +1 412-992-1947, [email protected]
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