Three Generations of Nuclear Power Have "Chinese Soul" —— Records of R & D of China Nuclear NESTOR Software Package
Source: China Nuclear Industry News Date: 2015-12-24
In June this year, Premier Li Keqiang inspected China Nuclear Group's "Hualong One" and said, "You stand by me, I will go to the international stage to make a name for you." In December, President Xi Jinping visited China Nuclear Power Corporation's "Hualong One" The booth said, "Our own technology must be introduced to the world." "Promoting China's independent third-generation nuclear power to the world" is a commitment made by CNNC to the country.
Since May 7 this year, the first batch of Fuqing No. 5 unit of China ’s third-generation nuclear power “Hualong No. 1” has been in operation for about half a year, “Hualong No. 1” has been exported overseas and has been accepted by the British and Argentina markets. Nuclear power first camp. "According to China Nuclear Group's" going global "layout, it will also discuss nuclear energy cooperation with nearly 20 countries such as France, Egypt, Romania, etc., said Qian Zhimin, general manager of China Nuclear Group.
"Nuclear power cannot be 'going out.' The three most important points are software, fuel, and key equipment. The CF series fuel assemblies we have developed have been tested in the reactor, and key equipment represented by steam generators has also been domestically produced." Luo Qi, deputy director of the Nuclear Power Division of the China National Nuclear Corporation and director of the China Nuclear Power Institute, said in an interview with reporters, "The core technology of nuclear power plants-software, China also has full control, which is our nuclear power design and analysis software package NESTOR. "
On December 17, after more than 30 years of continuous development and the concentrated development of the entire “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, China Nuclear Group ’s independent NESTOR software package was officially delivered. "Verified by experts, this software has reached the international advanced level, and it is on par with the United States, France and other nuclear power nations, and has become the world's first camp. Since then, three generations of nuclear power have a" Chinese soul "" Confidently, "NESTOR software package can help China's nuclear power export."
1. The cost of opening the "black box"
Without the NESTOR software package, the promotion of Chinese nuclear power overseas would be impossible. "Software is the 'core' of the core technology of nuclear power plants, and the key to participating in overseas competition." Luo Qi said, "Without our own software to design nuclear power plants, the nuclear power plants we build are only copies and copies of foreign nuclear power technology."
China's nuclear power started from Qinshan in the 1980s. Up to now, there are 27 nuclear power generating units operating in mainland China with an installed capacity of 25.5 million kilowatts; 24 nuclear power generating units under construction with an installed capacity of 26.36 million kilowatts, the largest in the world under construction.
It is understood that all nuclear power plants in operation and under construction in mainland China, except "Hualong One", use nuclear power software from nuclear power countries such as the United States, France, and Russia.
"But the software is like a" black box ". It can only be used and cannot be rewritten. Because you can't see the source code inside, you can only know it. You can't master the" Know How. " Wu Lin introduced.
"Countries with nuclear power software almost don't only sell software, often software and engineering are bundled and sold, and even nuclear power plants are bought together." Luo Qi said. According to statistics, the price of a software package that China imported from France in the 1980s and 1990s was as high as tens of millions of yuan. In 2006, the price of the two software packages of the third-generation nuclear power unit AP1000 introduced from the United States exceeded 1 billion yuan, and the software transfer fee accounted for about 10% of the entire nuclear power technology introduction. "And selling software to you has time and personnel restrictions, and repurchase it after the deadline." Luo Qi said, "For example, some software is only for one person. If you want to use one more person, you have to buy it again. One set, double the money. "Luo Qi said," It is conceivable that such investment is a bottomless pit. "
Even if the high price is introduced, it is only the right to use the software. There are many restrictions in the design process. For example, when purchasing a million-kilowatt nuclear power unit, the software package is only applicable to nuclear power units of the same model and the same capacity. It cannot be used for 600,000. In the design of nuclear power units with a capacity of 300,000 or more than one million kilowatts, this completely constrains the innovative ideas of scientific researchers, such as designing by holding their noses and shackles. "The reason for the limited scope of use of these softwares is that the importing country cannot see the original source code from these softwares, nor can it know the" mathematical formulas "therein, and therefore dare not use it in the design of other nuclear power plants. And analysis. Because the error of any parameter can bring fatal disaster. "Said Li Qing, chief designer of the software autonomy project of the Nuclear Power Institute.
Under these conditions, nuclear power people have also made important attempts. In the early 1990s, China Nuclear Power Engineering Co., Ltd. developed a large-scale management and pre-processing program system CAPS that uses nuclear-grade pipeline calculation programs as a calculation tool. So far, it has assisted in the calculation and analysis of nearly 10,000 nuclear-grade pipelines. However, at that time, the pipeline calculation programs under CAPS were all foreign execution programs. The development of nuclear power programs in China has always been the dream of nuclear power people.
With the development of China's nuclear power, Chinese nuclear researchers increasingly feel that they must overcome the shortcomings of autonomous software and have their own software. Therefore, China National Nuclear Corporation always adheres to independent innovation and has never stopped the pace of software autonomy. In 2010, based on the first 30 years of software development, China National Nuclear Corporation invested in the establishment of key projects to carry out nuclear power design analysis and operation support software developed in the early stage. Integrated, large-scale, systematic development of nearly a hundred software products and integration platforms. At the same time, it has also achieved a gorgeous transformation from reprinted design to independent research and development.
2. Privately-made "Hualong One"
The NESTOR software package covers all the innovations of "Hualong One", which is characterized by "core, advanced, mature and reliable." The core is because it is the most critical technology of "Hualong One"; advanced because it has reached the United States The level of nuclear power software in service in France; mature because it is accumulated based on historical data of hundreds of experimental benches, thousands of experimental conditions, and nearly 30 nuclear power constructions in 30 years; reliable because it is not only capable of The data of "Hualong No. 1" are verified, and other second-generation and second-generation plus nuclear power plants that have been built can be counter-verified.
"Hualong-1" is China's third-generation nuclear power technology with independent intellectual property rights. It is designed in accordance with the highest international safety standards and has advanced and unique technical features, such as 177 cores, CF fuel components, double-layer containment, active plus passive, ZH65. Type steam generator and so on. And different reactor types require different software calculation methods. "Our technology must use its own software. Only by mastering the core software of nuclear power plants can you truly master nuclear power technology." Deputy General Manager and Chief Accountant of Engineering Company Wen Xinli said.
In fact, in the 1970s and 1980s, China National Nuclear Corporation started research on pressurized water reactor nuclear power design technology, independently developed core design software, and applied it to projects such as the Shanghai Nuclear Power Plant and the Qinshan Phase II nuclear power plant drill design. . In 1988, it won the bid for the Qinshan Second Nuclear Power Plant project, and completed the engineering design of the project with the self-developed design software package NDFMPS.
In the past 30 years, CNNC Group has “trained a large number of talents who are proficient in engineering research technology and software technology development along with a large number of software technology wealth on the long road of software technology research and development”.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, especially in recent years, as China ’s nuclear power development and nuclear power export process have accelerated, in order to realize the “Hualong One” going abroad, it has higher requirements for the quality and version of autonomous software. Organize and coordinate related human and material resources to carry out software technology research and development, strictly follow relevant regulations and standards, and adopt strict management methods and perfect configuration management methods in the entire cycle of requirements analysis, theoretical model establishment, software writing, and test verification. External testing and third-party acceptance guarantee the quality of software products.
In 2010, under the unified deployment of China National Nuclear Corporation, relying on Longteng 2020 technology plan, the nuclear power institute, engineering company, China Nuclear Wuhan Nuclear Power Operation Technology Co., Ltd. and other units formed a research and development team, organized and implemented by the Nuclear Power Business Unit, and carried out systematically. The nuclear power software development work is aimed at solving the third-generation nuclear power software autonomy problem, which can be described as "Hualong One" tailor-made.
During the software development process, CNNC attaches special importance to the engineering application of software achievements. The first domestic large-scale CNPIPE nuclear-grade pipeline mechanical calculation software and LBB evaluation software developed by an engineering company are applied to "Hualong No. 1" after the quality is verified. Cable laying software is also widely used in actual engineering. Among them, many functions of CNPIPE surpass similar foreign software, which is more suitable for engineering applications. CNNC Wuhan Nuclear Power Operation Technology Co., Ltd., as a professional unit mainly relying on the group's operation and maintenance module, has developed a series of operation and maintenance support software. The newly developed advanced simulation platform software package has also been applied to the entire scope of the “Hualong No. 1” nuclear power plant Simulator and design verification platform development projects.
After 5 years of targeted R & D, the NESTOR software package meets the related nuclear power unit ’s supporting requirements for autonomous software technology, such as independent domestic fuel assemblies-CF modules, and independent domestic steam generators-ZH65 steam generators. Wait.
"It can be said that the private order of 'Hualong No. 1' has been completed." Liu Dong, deputy chief designer of the software autonomy project of the Nuclear Power Institute, said that during the modeling process of the NESTOR software package, a lot of engineering research experience and advanced The physical model of the R & D results is more suitable for engineering research practice, and it can be adapted slightly to the engineering design requirements of the second and third generation reactors of nuclear power plants.
At present, there are nearly one hundred softwares under development (including softwares already developed) for NESTOR software package, and 68 softwares have been completed. Among them, 64 software copyrights have been obtained, 17 patents have been accepted, 5 have been authorized, and the source code is 2.8 million lines. "NESTOR software package will continue to expand, and it has now planned to target more than 150 software." Liu Dong said.
The most obvious function of the NESTOR software package is efficiency. Luo Qi said, "Using software can turn points into lines and lines into areas." For example, in the 1990s, a nuclear power plant did a refueling design. Generally, more than a dozen people spent all day and night for one month. . Now the refueling design, currently do the refueling design of 10 stacks, each stack of 1-2 people, about a week. Previously, the design and demonstration of nuclear power plants needed to rely entirely on hardware for experimental optimization, which was costly and time-consuming. According to statistics, simulation tests can now be performed on the software first, greatly reducing the number of experiments and increasing the efficiency by 30%.
3. Big data “snowball”
Through continuous verification and anti-verification, the NESTOR software package has also been continuously upgraded and improved, so that the nuclear power plants it designs continue to meet higher requirements. After the completion of the first batch of Fuqing Unit 5 of "Hualong No. 1", a number of data updates will be applied to Fuqing Unit 6, with the continuous updating of the database, China's nuclear power technology is like a "snowball" and is becoming more and more advanced .
In an office of the Nuclear Power Institute, the reporter saw that a computer-filled dialog box popped up from time to time on the computer screen. Li Qing told reporters: "This is the wrong data input, the software prompts." And for such "convenience", if he used the previous nuclear power software, he called "Dare to imagine".
In the past, the software terminal interface had no graphics, and all were textual input methods. The lines of code were dense and dazzling for users. Sometimes, it is difficult to find the wrong code without paying attention, and in order to find it in thousands of lines of code, the staff often need to "sleep in the haystack" for days and nights. And such a thing, Li Qing encountered more than once.
NESTOR software package uses advanced computer technology and information technology, friendly user interface, strong application flexibility, and strong error correction capabilities. Engineers can get more humanized experience in the use process.
However, "our designers are synchronizing the parameters. Every modification and synchronization of the parameters will cause a chain reaction of the nuclear power unit, including component replacement, component interface changes, cooperation with the safety system, etc." "Hualong No. 1" R & D involves more than 70 majors, with the simultaneous participation of thousands of designers from all over the world. How to coordinate design on one platform is a big problem.
"In order to coordinate the simultaneous participation of multiple designers in research and development, we thought of building our own 'private cloud'. The NESTOR software package was developed with the help of a private cloud computing model and Galaxy Computer."
In this mode, the platform can be connected to thousands of terminals at the same time, with a designer behind each terminal. At the same time, with its powerful computing capabilities, nuclear accidents can be simulated and analyzed.
This is far from all. "The completion of a mature software package must also be supported by a strong database." Li Qing said. Although the project did not last long, the "gene" of the NESTOR software package dates back to the 1980s. From the beginning of the Qinshan Phase I nuclear power plant in 1985 to a 'zero-breakthrough' of continental nuclear power, to the subsequent construction of the Qinshan Phase II nuclear power plant, to the development and construction of a large number of "second generation plus" nuclear power units in the 1990s, and Construction ... China Nuclear Group has accumulated hundreds of test benches, thousands of experimental operating conditions, and rich test data accumulated from the construction of nearly 30 nuclear power plants in 30 years. "The paper version of these data has our own The office building is so high. "Li Qing said. The huge database lays a solid foundation for software development. Without these data, the project staff can only be "the clever woman can't cook without rice".
"In the past 30 years, feedback on the operating experience of all domestic nuclear power plants and research and development test data during the research and development of 'Hualong No. 1' have been included in the database by the independently developed software platform terminal. Through these solid engineering constructions, The NESTOR software package is maturing. Compared with other domestic nuclear power software, this is one of its advantages. "Li Qing said.
The successful development of a complete set of software products will effectively improve nuclear power engineering design, construction, operation efficiency and quality, lay a good foundation for opening up the technical service market, and provide technical reserves for the development of various new reactor nuclear power software software for future development. To lay the software foundation for the international advanced level of nuclear power generation.
At present, the NESTOR software package has been successfully applied to the reactor engineering design of Fuqing No. 5 and No. 6 demonstration project of Hualong No. 1. The calculation accuracy of this software package has reached the international advanced level and the engineering applicability is strong. At the same time, some software has been applied to the technical services of in-service power plants including Fangjiashan, Fuqing, Changjiang, and Tianwan, and will play a core role in the design of new-generation reactor engineering in the future.