L-3 MAPPS announced today that the Embalse full scope simulator it developed for Nucleoeléctrica Argentina SA (NA-SA) was put into service on March 22, 2013 at the Embalse nuclear power station on the southern shore of a reservoir on the Rio Tercero, near the city of Embalse in Córdoba Province, Argentina.
L-3 MAPPS and NA-SA gathered in Córdoba today to celebrate this significant success, a project milestone known as ‘Ready for Training’.
The simulator will support enhanced operator training for the single unit at the Embalse site, a CANDU 6 pressurized heavy water reactor with a net output of 600 MWe that went into commercial operation on January 20, 1984. The last full scope CANDU plant simulator L-3 MAPPS developed was for the Qinshan Phase III plant in Zhejiang, China, which entered service in the first quarter of 2003.
Since then, L-3 MAPPS has introduced significant technology inroads that the industry has adopted, including plant models developed in L-3’s Orchid® simulation environment, emulation of redundant plant computer systems and highly advanced compact input/output systems, all of which have been applied to making the Embalse simulator completely state-of-the-art.
"Through this development effort, L-3 has produced the most modern full scope CANDU plant simulator using today’s very latest hardware and software technologies and simulation techniques," said Michael Chatlani, vice-president of marketing and sales for L-3 MAPPS Power Systems and Simulation. "This is an important project for L-3 MAPPS as it makes us uniquely qualified to build the next generation of CANDU plant simulators. We are very grateful to NA-SA for giving us the opportunity to advance our solution to this stage."
"With the Embalse full scope simulator in service, the first major deliverable for the plant’s life extension project has been successfully achieved," said Rubén Semmoloni, Embalse NPP life extension project director for NA-SA. "We applaud the L-3 MAPPS and NA-SA technical teams for their teamwork and dedication in delivering the simulator, which will be a central part of our personnel training and safety culture for the next 25 years."
The Embalse full scope simulator features L-3’s leading Orchid simulation environment running on a PC/Windows platform. All of the plant’s simulated operational systems are developed, validated and maintained within Orchid, including the reactor, nuclear steam supply systems, balance of plant systems, electrical systems and I&C systems. The plant computer systems, known as Digital Control Computers (DCCs), are represented with a fully emulated dual DCC that is integrated in the full scope simulator.