Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) Application in Nuclear Power Plants (NPP)

Abstract

Companies in the nuclear power sector are constantly being challenged to improve their safety and reliability due to increasing complexity arise from evolving safety regulations, long production life, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the need for analyzing the impact of the changes in an operational life cycle. Recognizing these challenges, the paper proposes a transition to Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) as a transformative solution to improve the management of such complex systems. With this objective, this paper presents a workflow implementation that demonstrates the MBSE methodologies to define a concept model, system architecture, impact analysis, safety and reliability analysis, and operational decision-making of Nuclear Power Plants (NPP). The paper concludes that MBSE provides a potent approach to managing NPP by employing graphical models to develop interrelated systems that has strong adaptability to heterogeneous environments and regulatory changes. The simulation results demonstrated an NPP life cycle, impact analysis, and a test case for model-based safety and reliability analysis for regulatory compliance, operational efficiency, balance safety, and informed decision-making in NPP. The study also leads to a number of interesting directions of future work such as synchronization through Product Lifecycle Management, integration with Building Information Modeling, Model-Based Commissioning/Decommissioning, and Model-Based Cyber System Security tailored for nuclear power systems.