Background

In the never-ending quest for reliability and safety in the Nuclear Energy electrical power production industry, testing is an ongoing process. Nuclear regulatory agencies specify standard acceptable service lifetimes for components such as pumps, valves, fittings, piping, etc as a function of their application, ambient operating conditions, criticality, etc. Maximizing service lifetimes of these typically very expensive, nuclear service qualified components can result in considerable production cost savings from both a component replacement cost and minimized down-time.

In some applications, service lifetimes of components can be extended beyond the standard "worst-case" lifetimes specified by Nuclear regulatory standards. If operating conditions can be proven to be less demanding than the worst-case" conditions used in the development of the standard lifetime guidelines, a component's service life can be extended.

The Problem

Many components within a nuclear power generation facility are within areas that are not safe for human exposure... such as within the various containment areas. Wiring access to these containment areas is typically limited and can be extremely expensive to augment.

The Solution

With the deployment of low-power Logic Beach data logging instruments into these limited access containment areas, operating conditions can be logged and archived... resulting in extension of service lifetimes. Logic Beach loggers have been deployed into low-level containment areas (dry-wells) during shut-downs then retrieved upon the next scheduled shut-down for data download, battery change, and redeployment. Some applications have utilized serial links for communications, data downloads, and reprogramming of the logger while in containment.

Logic Beach loggers are regularly used within the electric power generation industry for many other types of component life-extension studies, performance studies, efficiency studies, and more... . resulting in substantial savings in energy production costs.