Application of Reliability-centered Maintenance Method in Maintenance and Control Optimization in NPPs

The safety is a prerequisite for the nuclear power plants' operation. Various measures have been considered at the design stage to ensure the reliability of the NPPs. During the nuclear power plants' operation, equipment reliability management is one of the primary means to ensure NPPs operate safety. RCM, Reliability-centered Maintenance, an important method for the equipment reliability management in NPPs, can be used to complete FMEA analysis for the systems and components, and develop or optimize maintenance strategies to ensure the effectiveness of preventive maintenance strategy according to RCM decision logic. At the same time, it can be used to find the insufficient of the design, improve the control logic and layout. This article describes the RCM analysis process, illustrates the application and effectiveness of the RCM analysis in maintenance and control optimization combined with the practice of nuclear power plants.