PLM programs prepare for fire drills

Scenarios enable nuclear plant engineers to anticipate fire damage and modify the facility to resist failures in vital systems such as cabling.

One of the USA's largest nuclear power plant operators is using Dassault Systemes PLM software to plan the fire preparedness programmes at one of its Louisiana nuclear generating stations.

Engineers at the Entergy Corporation-owned Waterford 3 nuclear power plant are using DS-developed knowledge-based 3D models of rooms and equipment to create lifelike hazard simulations of critical areas of the plant.

Engineers use a workstation running a Catia Equipment and Systems applications to plot a fire's possible impact on equipment in a given fire area.

The scenarios enable engineers to anticipate fire damage and modify the facility to resist failures in vital systems such as cabling.

The engineers at Waterford were impressed with the modelling and simulation capabilities of Catia.

The interactive 3D models let them test scenarios devised by the staff.

This lets Waterford 3 personnel plan modifications and develop safety programmes for minimising fire damage.

Entergy is the second-largest nuclear plant operator in the USA, with 10 facilities.

The Waterford 3 facility plans to use DS PLM solutions in a broader range of applications in the future.

Corporate engineering managers are evaluating Waterford 3's work to determine whether to implement it at other Entergy facilities.

"The 3D models Entergy created make communicating how the fire scenarios are addressed much easier and it would have been difficult to conduct a programme like this without the models", says Al Casas, Nuclear Industry Leader for Dassault Systemes.

"PLM solutions like Catia are most often associated with product design and manufacturing, but they have a growing role in maintenance and operations, as Waterford 3's engineering staff is demonstrating".

"Simulation is equally relevant in production and facility operations because its fundamental role is to free engineers from the physical world's limitations".

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