SPIC Releases Its First Fully Independent Full-Scope Simulator and Related Independent Technologies in Beijing

On September 28, SPIC released its first fully independent full-scope simulator and related independent technologies in Beijing, announcing that State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) has mastered complete full-scope simulator R&D and supply capabilities.

A full-scope simulator is like a mirror of a nuclear power plant; operators performing control actions in the full-scope simulator receive realistic feedback in real time. With the help of this “digital nuclear power plant without nuclear accident hazards,” operators repeatedly hone their daily operational control and accident handling skills, becoming professionals who ensure the safe and efficient operation of real nuclear power plants.

To ensure the training quality of main control room operators at nuclear power plants, the SPIC Central Research Institute took the lead, together with SNPAS, SNPDP and other units, to form a joint technical research team. Based on the evaluation of the first batch of operators for SPIC's “Guohe One” nuclear power plant, the team carried out 23 months of work, 5 rounds, 272 procedures, and 710 tests, eliminating more than 2,000 deviations, and confirmed that the simulator meets all requirements of the strict national energy industry standard “NB/T 20015-2021 Simulators for Nuclear Power Plant Operator Training and Examinations”; after all tests were completed, the joint team also conducted a 6-month training trial run totaling 720 hours, including 126 training scenarios, confirming that the simulator's functions and performance fully meet the requirements for operator training use. Through detailed testing far exceeding that of peers, it was confirmed that SPIC's first independent full-scope simulator is capable of reproducing nuclear power plant operating phenomena with the utmost fidelity.

The full-scope simulator integrates technologies from multiple fields including nuclear reactor engineering, thermal power, electrical engineering, instrumentation and control, computers, and digital computation. It was jointly developed by three units under SPIC: the SPIC Central Research Institute, SNPAS, and SNPDP, completing the development of the “three major components” of technology with fully independent intellectual property rights: the “Nuclear Mirror” simulation platform, the “Herui” simulation instrumentation and control software, and the “COSINE” simulation computation software.

Using the “three major components” of an automobile as an analogy, the simulation platform is like the body and chassis, connecting all components of the full-scope simulator into one integrated whole; the simulation instrumentation and control software is the dashboard and controller, receiving and feeding back the operator's “driving” actions; the simulation computation software is the engine, using multi-physics coupled real-time simulation computation to provide a continuous “power” supply for the full-scope simulator.

SPIC's independent nuclear power full-scope simulator technology can be summarized as “FINE”: namely “Full,” “Innovation,” “Nimble,” and “Exact.” “Full” means meeting the requirements of the National Energy Administration's 2021 upgraded standard “Simulators for Nuclear Power Plant Operator Training and Examinations,” covering all operating conditions from normal operation to severe accidents of nuclear power plants; “Innovation” means pioneering and innovating in the field of full-scope simulator technology, being the first to adopt the “COSINE” computation software that has passed the review of the National Nuclear Safety Administration, the first to successfully use a distributed simulation architecture, and the first in China to achieve a “single 650°C severe accident transition condition”; “Nimble” means the “COSINE” computation software has carried out acceleration research, increasing computation speed to faster than real-time while maintaining best-estimate accuracy; “Exact” means the “COSINE” computation software has achieved accurate simulation of all operating conditions and processes of nuclear power plants at a time step of one hundred milliseconds.