Darlington Tritium Removal Facility and Station Upgrading Plant Dynamic Process Simulation

Abstract

Ontario Power Generation Nuclear (OPGN) has a 4 x 880 MWe CANDU nuclear station at its Darlington Nuclear Division located in Bowmanville. The station has been operating a Tritium Removal Facility (TRF) and a D2O station Upgrading Plant (SUP) since 1989. Both facilities were designed with a Distributed Control System (DCS) and programmable logic controllers (PLC) for process control. This control system was replaced with a DCS only, in 1998. A dynamic plant simulator was developed for the Darlington TRF (DTRF) and the SUP, as part of the computer control system replacement. The simulator was used to test the new software, required to eliminate the PLCs. The simulator is now used for operator training and testing of process control software changes prior to field installation. Dynamic simulation will be essential for the ITER isotope separation system, where the process is more dynamic than the relatively steady-state DTRF process. This paper describes the development and application of the DTRF and SUP dynamic simulator, its benefits, architecture, and the operational experience with the simulator