FMEA of Online Data Acquisition System for Heavy Water Leak Detection in Dhruva Research Reactor

A Prototype Beetle Monitoring System (P-BMS) has been developed for online heavy water leak detection in Dhruva research reactor. The system facilitates early identification of component failure and on-line remote surveillance of heavy water leak in the areas where personnel entry is restricted during reactor operation. In P-BMS, the field inputs from beetle points are interfaced to Ethernet based Data Acquisition Modules and communicated to Operator Console (OC) over Ethernet using Modbus/TCP protocol. As the logic for processing beetle inputs and alarm generation is built into these modules, it has enhanced the performance of the system by removing the physical interconnections for generating alarm/status indication. The P-BMS display provides all the necessary values and status indication for each channel with a provision to record alarm data for event analysis and history. Availability of information on demand has made the operation smooth and maintenance easier. This improved beetle monitoring system based on remote I/O modules and additional status indication has improved the reliability of heavy water leak detection system significantly.