HOW FAR BACK SHOULD I GO? BELOW ARE STORIES FROM > 5 YEARS AGO:

 

Oct  2013

Awarded New Upgrade Project

     
 

HF Controls received purchase orders from Alcoa to upgrade the control system at their Warrick site. Unit 4 was partially upgraded years ago and will now have their DOS-based Engineering Work Station upgraded to a Windows 7-bassed system, will have the inter-controller communication equipment upgraded and will have the directly connected MODBUS link to a separate Honeywell system upgraded to a faster MODBUS-over-TCP/IP communication link while adding a new Windows 7-based Operator Work Station installed for direct input.

Unit 2 is currently using SBC-02 controllers with Patch-Panel programming from around 1990 (that HF Controls still supports). These controllers will be upgraded to the SBC-05 controllers and the Patch-Panel code currently in use will be converted to modern Boolean form. The directly connected MODBUS link to a separate Honeywell system will be upgraded to a faster MODBUS over TCP/IP communication link while adding a new Windows 7-based Operator Work Station installed for direct input.

While the existing systems are still performing their duties after more than 20 years of continuous service, the upgrade will allow the operators a more modern direct interface for equipment control, easy future expansion of equipment, easier to understand and edit Boolean language programming and will be accomplished without altering any existing field equipment wiring!

HF Controls is looking forward to providing this modernizing of equipment and operator interface to a long time, valued customer.

 

Sep  2013

Doosan HFC Delivered the First Safety Instrument System to China/Taiwan

     
 

HF Controls delivered the first HFC-6000 Safety Instrument System (SIS) to Formosa Plastic Company in (FPC) Taiwan. After the Final Acceptance Test (FAT) in Taiwan, the SIS will be installed in FPC’s petrochemical plants in China later this year. This is the result from the two years cooperation of developing a certified safety control platform with Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER) in Taiwan.

 

Aug  2013

HFC-6000 Receives SIL 3 Certificate for Second Time

     
 

HF Controls receives the second TUV SIL 3 certificate for HFC-6000 safety control system. This time, the certificate is awarded to the Triple Module Redundant (TMR) HFC-6000 with our new HFC-FPC08 controller. Up to today, HFC-6000 has two SIL 3 certificate for both HFC-SBC06 multiple loop controller and HFC-FPC08 high performance controller. Both safety controllers have many installations for safety control processes in nuclear power plants in the past.

 

Jun  2013

Maintenance Contract Completed

     
 

HF Controls completed the service and maintenance contract successfully on Plant Control System (PCS) in Ulchin Nuclear Power Plant (UCN) during the outage of Unit 5. As the original vendor of PCS at site, HF Controls is able to diagnose the current system issues and to provide the solution to it. This service and maintenance contract was handled by HF Controls Branch Office in Korea and the technical support from our US based engineers.

 

Jun  2012

HF Controls participates in NIC 2012 Beijing China

     
 

Doosan HF Controls (Doosan HFC), a nuclear Digital Instrumentation and Controls (I&C) vendor located in Texas, USA, participated in the NIC 2012 Exhibition for the first time.

 

Digital I&C systems - based on computers and microprocessors, are the nervous systems of a nuclear power plant that monitor all aspects of the plant’s health and help respond with the care and adjustments needed.  Digital I&C systems offer highest reliability, better plant performance and additional diagnostic capabilities. Analog systems will gradually become obsolete.

 

About 40% of the worlds operating reactors (~450) have been modernized to include at least some digital I&C systems.  The current nuclear power plants that are in construction and are planned to be constructed will be digitized in most of their I&C systems. Safety-related digital I&C systems, for example, Reactor Protection Systems and Engineered Safety Features Actuation Systems, are key technologies in the nuclear I&C systems.  The safety-related I&C systems must be thoroughly reviewed and be qualified and approved by the government nuclear safety regulators before they are used in the nuclear power plants.

 

For the past twenty years, Doosan HFC has developed and manufactured a family of controller systems to control pumps, valves, circuit breakers, motor starters, and solenoid valves as well as monitor the status of the process under control. These control systems have been used for a wide variety of commercial processes, including nuclear power plants in the safety-related as well as non-safety-related applications. 

 

Doosan HFC is an active I&C equipment vendor in South Korea and have installed control equipment to all four Korean nuclear sites including Yonggwang, Kori, Wolsong and Ulchin. In the past 15 years, the South Koreans have installed 12 units, 1000 MW Korean Standard Nuclear Power (KSNP) plants. Doosan HFC provided the Plant Control System (PCS) to eight (8) units of these twelve (12) units.  The PCS controls up to 80% of the equipment in the plants and includes both nuclear class 1E and non-class 1E control systems.  Doosan HFC also provided several retrofit control systems to help the existing plants to upgrade aged I&C equipment such as Alternative Diesel Generator control systems (AAC D/G), and Safety Video Display Unit (SVDU) (similar SVDU have been supplied to the Spanish ASCO Units 1&2 Nuclear Power Plant).  In addition, Doosan HFC worked with Doosan Heavy Industries (Doosan HFC parent company) to design and test a Nuclear Steam Supply System (NSSS).    

 

Currently, South Korea is moving into 1400MW next generation nuclear power plants. As part of the localization policy, Doosan HFC has adjusted its role to perform design and development work for the I&C division of Doosan nuclear business group. Doosan HFC has been participating in I&C equipment development work for Shin Ulchin (SUN) 1&2 aggressively. The scope of the work includes both I&C development engineering and nuclear application engineering. Just for this year alone, Doosan HFC received more than half dozen engineering projects from its parent company.

 

Doosan HFC is instrumental in helping South Korea to realize its nuclear I&C technology localization. The original design of Doosan HFCs digital control system for Duke Powers nuclear application became the first digital I&C installation in the South Korean nuclear power plant (YGN 3&4) in the early 1990s.  Installation of thousands of microprocessor- based single loop controllers marked the first step away from analog control circuitries to digitize the entire plant protection, control, and status monitoring. Since then, for a period longer than 10 years, the South Korea Power Engineering Company (KOPEC) has localized its I&C engineering process.  Doosan HFCs modernized HFC-6000 & ECS-1200 nuclear control system became the first installation of multiple loop controllers in South Korean nuclear power plants. Meanwhile, several Distributed Control Systems (DCS) had been started to apply to the non-critical control area such as the Radwaste control system.  The I&C equipment evolution process provided chances to gain mature experience for KOPECs nuclear I&C engineering and accumulative maintenance skills for Korean utility customer, Hydro & Nuclear Power Company (KHNP).  Since the nuclear industry localization is the long term policy and commitment for the South Korean government, Doosan HFC has been an important contributor to the South Korean nuclear industry to reach its goal of possessing the current most advanced nuclear plants I&C. 

 

Last April, Doosan HFC obtained the US NRC SER for its safety-related platform HFC-6000 (see Figure 1). This is an important milestone in the qualification of a safety system and is a useful basis for any company using the platform.  Such qualification simplifies the local licensing process and is ready for immediate applications.  Doosan HFC is only the fourth vendor to obtain such qualification.

 

Mr. Robert Contratto, Vice President Marketing and Sales of Doosan HFC and Dr. Steve Yang, Chief Consultant of Doosan HFC represented Doosan HFC at the NIC 2012 meeting in Beijing (see Figure 2).  Dr. Yang is an international expert on the digital I&C and safety-related software verification and validation.  He visited China a few times including an invitation presentation on the US digital I&C experience for China State Nuclear Power Technology Company and an invitation presentation on DCS V&V for the Nuclear and Radiation Safety Center (NRSC).   Dr. Yang strongly believes that Doosan HFC can provide an immediate solution with long term benefits to the China qualified 1E nuclear I&C platform need and fill the void for the Chinese Nuclear Industry.  This is because Doosan HFCs platform is not only reviewed most extensively and qualified but also proven and reliable.  According to Dr. Yang, the digital I&C is a very specialized and knowledge intensive field.  The size of the company does not matter.  However, the know-how and flexibility matter.  Doosan HFC has the nuclear I&C knowledge and the Doosan HFC system is flexible and scalable, suitable for any size of the nuclear I&C projects.  Doosan HFC is willing to cooperate with China through technical transfer with a comprehensive training program.  This will be a successful cooperation between Doosan HFC and China and will benefit the Chinese Nuclear Industry in particular and the greater industries in general.

 

Figure 1 HFC-6000 high integrity product basis

 

HF6000 Control System



 

Figure 2 - Mr. Robert Contratto (the first from the left) and Dr. Steve Yang (the third from the left) with engineers from China Nuclear Control System Engineering Company. 

 

Mr. Robert Controtta and Dr. Steve Yang