Digital Upgrades
NLI has remained at the forefront in the supply of digital upgrades to the nuclear industry. Most of the world has long since gone digital, from household items like phones and microwave ovens, to the chip that makes your car’s engine run. While changing from analog to digital in a nuclear plant is no easy task, it is often the best alternative when faced with obsolescence challenges or when improved equipment performance is required.
One of our flagship solutions was qualifying digital chiller controllers for a particular plant. To demonstrate the functionality of the digital unit, NLI purchased an identical chiller unit from a cancelled plant, shipped it to Texas, and reassembled it at our facility. There’s no better way to demonstrate how something works than to actually do it.
A major advantage of using NLI for digital upgrades is our extensive experience in this area, the fact we do the qualification testing in-house, and can get immediate feedback and modify designs as required. Digital equipment is especially susceptible to electro-magnetic and radio-frequency interference (EMI / RFI) and nearly always needs some modifications before it will pass qualification testing – typically shielding.
NLI performs a full range of digital upgrade services, including software verification & validation, defining the safety function, determining failure modes and abnormal conditions or events (ACEs), as well as all aspects of quality assurance.