Parallel system method to improve safety and reliability of nuclear power plants

The safety and reliability are the soul of nuclear power plant. Until now, the solution to assure the safety and reliability is still not smart and reasonable enough because its strict management, standards and law are made and executed with human's experience and knowledge. By using of the latest IT technology, “Product Lifecycle Management” software can be developed where “top-down” plan method is combined with “down-top” design method to assure the safety and reliability of the product. Nuclear power system is a typical complex system consisting of many dynamic factors, and the conventional control, simulation and management technology can't assure the safety and reliability of its operation and management. Then, parallel system method is proposed in the paper, where includes the basic principle and its successful applications, ACP method, i.e. Artificial systems, Computing experiments, and Parallel execution methods, which is applied in PnTS, PnES and PnMS for nuclear power.