HARMONICS

Harmonised Assessment of Reliability of MOdern Nuclear I&C Software

 Coordinatore Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT Oy 

 Organization address address: Vuorimiehentie 3
city: Espoo
postcode: 2150

contact info
Titolo: Dr.
Nome: Jari
Cognome: Hämäläinen
Email: send email
Telefono: +358 40 7354382
Fax: +358 20 7227001

 Nazionalità Coordinatore Finland [FI]
 Totale costo 1˙577˙237 €
 EC contributo 999˙458 €
 Programma FP7-EURATOM-FISSION
EURATOM: Nuclear fission and radiation protection
 Code Call FP7-Fission-2010
 Funding Scheme CP-FP
 Anno di inizio 2011
 Periodo (anno-mese-giorno) 2011-01-12   -   2015-01-11

 Partecipanti

# participant  country  role  EC contrib. [€] 
1    Teknologian tutkimuskeskus VTT Oy

 Organization address address: Vuorimiehentie 3
city: Espoo
postcode: 2150

contact info
Titolo: Dr.
Nome: Jari
Cognome: Hämäläinen
Email: send email
Telefono: +358 40 7354382
Fax: +358 20 7227001

FI (Espoo) coordinator 0.00
2    ELECTRICITE DE FRANCE S.A.

 Organization address address: avenue de Wagram 22-30
city: PARIS
postcode: 75382

contact info
Titolo: Mr.
Nome: Thuy
Cognome: Nguyen
Email: send email
Telefono: 33130877249
Fax: 33130878261

FR (PARIS) participant 297˙237.00
3    TEKNOLOGIAN TUTKIMUSKESKUS VTT

 Organization address address: TEKNIIKANTIE 4 A
city: ESPOO
postcode: 02044 VTT

contact info
Titolo: Dr.
Nome: Jari
Cognome: Hämäläinen
Email: send email
Telefono: +358 20 722111
Fax: +358 20 7226027

FI (ESPOO) participant 292˙887.00
4    ADELARD LLP

 Organization address address: STATION ROAD STOURSIDE PLACE
city: ASHFORD KENT
postcode: TN23 1PP K

contact info
Titolo: Prof.
Nome: Robin
Cognome: Bloomfield
Email: send email
Telefono: 442075000000
Fax: 442075000000

UK (ASHFORD KENT) participant 217˙015.00
5    Institut fur Sicherheitstechnologie (ISTec) GmbH

 Organization address address: Boltzmannstrasse 14
city: Garching
postcode: 85748

contact info
Titolo: Ms.
Nome: Sigrid
Cognome: Wenzel
Email: send email
Telefono: +49 221 2068924
Fax: +49 221 20689448

DE (Garching) participant 151˙885.00
6    STRALSAKERHETSMYNDIGHETEN

 Organization address address: SOLNA STRANDVAG 96
city: STOCKHOLM
postcode: 171 16

contact info
Titolo: Mr.
Nome: Erik
Cognome: Henriksson
Email: send email
Telefono: +46 8 7994390
Fax: +46 8 7994010

SE (STOCKHOLM) participant 40˙434.00

Mappa


 Word cloud

Esplora la "nuvola delle parole (Word Cloud) per avere un'idea di massima del progetto.

reliability    sharing    harmonisation    safety    harmonics    software    team    tools    digital    power    operation    practical    experiences    gen    energy    china    upgrade    verification    units    plant    critical    countries    technologies    nuclear    assessing    industry    practices    licensing    quantify    justification   

 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

The ongoing nuclear renaissance means the construction of new nuclear power units, and the upgrade for lifetime extension of existing units. The reliability and safety of the computer-based systems that implement safety functions is a critical issue, in particular due to the fact that software can usually not be proven to be completely defect-free. The differences in current safety justification principles and methods in the EU and China hinder the emergence of widely accepted best practices. They also prevent cost sharing and unnecessarily increase licensing uncertainties.

The objective of the HARMONICS project is to ensure that the nuclear industry has well founded and up-to-date methods and data for assessing software of safety systems of Gen-II and Gen-III nuclear power plants. HARMONICS will propose a more systematic and consistent, yet realistic and practical, approach for the software assessment. The approach will address the complete software and system lifecycle, from requirements specification to architectural and detailed design, development, testing, use and maintenance. HARMONICS will be the result of a close co-operation between the EU and China. In addition to the core project team, a larger advisory and end user group will be constituted with other interested stakeholders to review and give feedback on the project work. The project should foster an international consensus based on a sound scientific and technical approach, and provide a good basis for harmonisation.

The main steps of the project are - Clarification of needs, practices and experiences in the EU and China. - Development of common approaches to the assessment and justification of the reliability of safety-critical software taking advantage from experience from the recent licensing processes and research projects. - Test of the approaches in case studies. - Assessment of results from the case studies. - Dissemination of results via end users workshops.

Introduzione (Teaser)

Joint efforts between China and the EU have helped to develop new methods of verifying safety-critical software for use in the nuclear power industry.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Nuclear energy represents an important part of the energy mix in Europe, and maintaining the strictest safety standards is paramount for the sector's sustainability. In this context, instrumentation and control (I&C) systems represent the central nervous system of a nuclear power plant, monitoring all aspects of its operation and responding with the required adjustments.

The EU-funded project 'Harmonised assessment of reliability of modern nuclear I&C software' (http://harmonics.vtt.fi (HARMONICS)) supported the nuclear industry in exploiting and evaluating software of high-tech safety systems. Keeping in mind the global nature of nuclear energy, the project aimed to propose practical methods to verify software through tight collaboration between China and five EU countries.

To achieve its aims, the project team designed new software verification tools and methods. It began by outlining the needs, practices and experiences in China and the EU, developing common approaches to assessing reliability and justifying safety-critical software. This involved analysing end-user needs and conducting case studies to validate relevant software.

In the process of developing software verification methods and tools, the project team assessed justification frameworks for software-based systems and outlined approaches to quantify software failure rates. It deployed formal methods, statistical testing and complexity analysis to assess software-based systems, as well as an analytical approach to quantify software reliability. These approaches and methods were tested in case studies and the results assessed to ensure their validity.

The results from HARMONICS are expected to enhance plant efficiency and upgrade safety through new digital I&C technologies and methods. Licensing of digital I&C systems will become more transparent and cost efficient, while harmonisation in nuclear I&C among EU countries and beyond will facilitate sharing of best practices. Lastly, the project's results are also expected to boost competitiveness in digital I&C technologies and solutions on the market.

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