- Author
- Tanaka, T. J. | Nowlen, S. P.
- Title
- Results and Insights on the Impact of Smoke on Digital Instrumentation and Control.
- Coporate
- Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM
- Sponsor
- Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
- Report
- NUREG/CR-6597; SAND99-1320, January 2001, 132 p.
- Distribution
- AVAILABLE FROM Government Printing Office, Mail Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402-0001. Telephone: 202-512-1800. Fax: 202-512-2250. Website: http://bookstore.gpo.gov
- Keywords
- smoke | electronics | test methods | fire barriers | fire protection | ventilation | damage | electromagnetic properties
- Identifiers
- mitigation of smoke damage; post-fire recovery
- Abstract
- Smoke can cause interruptions and upsets in active electronics. Because nuclear power plants are replacing analog with digital instrumentation and control systems, qualification guidelines for new systems are being renewed for severe environments such as smoke and elecrtomagnetic interference. Active digital systems, individual components, and active circuits have been exposed to smoke in a program sponsored by the U.S. National Regulatory Commission. The circuits and systems were all monitored during the smoke exposure, indicating any immediate effects of the smoke. The major effect of smoke has been to increase leakagecurrents (through circuit bridging across contacts and leads) and to cause momentary upsets and failures in digital systems. This report summarizes two previous reports and presents new results from conformal coating, memory chip, and hard drive disks tests. The report describes practices for mitigation of smoke damage through digital system design, fire barriers, ventilation, fire suppressants, and post fire procedures.