AN EXPERT SYSTEM/NATURAL LANGUAGE INTEGRATED SYSTEM TO ENHANCE RELIABILITY-BASED DECISION MAKING IN POWER PLANTS-

THIS PROGRAM WILL ATTEMPT TO BRING EXPERT SYSTEMS AND NATURAL LANGUAGE TECHNOLOGIES INTO THE ARENA OF RELIABILITY ANALYSIS, FOR NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS. BY INTEGRATING THESE TECHNOLOGIES INTO THE RELIABILITY ANALYSIS, THE USER BASE AND THE DOMAIN OF APPLICATIONS CAN BE SUBSTANTIALLY EXPANDED. RELIABILITY ANALYSIS ASSOCIATED WITH DESIGN, MAINTENANCE, AND OPERATIONS DECISIONS CAN POTENTIALLY BE PERFORMED BY ENGINEERS AND MANAGERS WHO ARE THOROUGHLY KNOWLEDGEABLE ABOUT THE POWER PLANT BUT LACK EXPERIENCE IN THE SUBTLETIES OF RELIABILITY ANALYSIS AND THE IDIOSYNCRASIES OF THE DATA BASE MANAGERS CONTAINING THE BASIC FAILURE RELIABILITY NUMBERS. THE NATURAL LANGUAGE INTERFACE WILL BE USED TO ENABLE THE USERS TO QUERY THE BASIC RELIABILITY DATA BASES USING STRAIGHTFORWARD ENGLISH. THE EXPERT SYSTEM TECHNOLOGY WILL BE USED TO AUTOMAT- ICALLY TRANSLATE FROM A PLANT SYSTEM DIAGRAM, E.G., PIPE AND INSTRUMENT DIAGRAM (P&ID), WHICH IS FAMILIAR TO THE ELECTRIC UTILITY ENGINEERS, INTO THE REPRESENTATION REQUIRED BY THE RELIABILITY CODE. PHASE I WILL DEVELOP A DEMONSTRATION SYSTEM THAT WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW BY THE INSTITUTE OF NUCLEAR PLANT OPERATION AND TWO UTILITY ORGANIZATIONS. A FULL- SCALE PROTOTYPE WILL BE DEVELOPED DURING PHASE II TOGETHER WITH A NUCLEAR UTILITY.