Digital System Reliability Test for the Evaluation of safety Critical Software of Digital Reactor Protection System

A new Digital Reactor Protection System (DRPS) based on VME bus Single Board Computer has been developed by KOPEC to prevent software Common Mode Failure(CMF) inside digital system. The new DRPS has been proved to be an effective digital safety system to prevent CMF by Defense-in-Depth and Diversity (DID&D) analysis. However, for practical use in Nuclear Power Plants, the performance test and the reliability test are essential for the digital system qualification. In this study, a single channel of DRPS prototype has been manufactured for the evaluation of DRPS capabilities. The integrated functional tests are performed and the system reliability is analyzed and tested. The results of reliability test show that the application software of DRPS has a very high reliability compared with the analog reactor protection systems