Highly Reliable NPP Instrumentation Using Constant Voltage Feedback Circuits

A highly reliable nuclear power plant (NPP) instrumentation using constant voltage feedback circuits is proposed. Contrary to conventional NPP instrumentation, two operational amplifiers are used at auxiliary building to supply constant DC voltage across the potentiometer or wheatstone bridge type sensors, such as resistance temperature detectors (RTD) and strain gauges. The proposed constant voltage feedback circuits maintain its output voltage as constant regardless of the length of lead wire from the auxiliary building to the sensors. A detail analysis of the proposed feedback circuits and design procedures including the internal resistance and parasitic LC components of lead wire are presented. A prototype with lumped RLC values for modeling lead wires is fabricated and experimentally verified to supply constant 10V up to 200m distance under 0.8% error. Due to its versatile characteristics with cost effective structure, the proposed scheme can be generally extended to pressure meters and water-level recorders to guarantee robust measurements without conventional current transducers under severe accidents. Keyword: Severe accident, Instrument, Lead wire, Constant voltage feedback, Wheatstone bridge