The newly-released “Vetting Smart Instruments for the Nuclear Industry” white paper details how Moore Industries has designed and configured key products for nuclear safety-critical applications – particularly in the United Kingdom. Moore Industries’ early experience with the EMPHASIS assessment tool in the UK helped further refine the company’s approach to building products designed for functional safety and use in the global and UK nuclear industry.
Moore Industries worked with the Control and Instrumentation Nuclear Industries Forum (CINIF) in the UK on the conceptual development of the EMPHASIS assessment tool for smart instruments intended for use in nuclear safety-critical applications in the UK. Released in 2005, EMPHASIS provides a common framework for determining the suitability of devices in nuclear industries. Earlier designs for process control and safety systems used “good engineering practices and experience” as guidelines. As functional safety awareness grew and software-based products became more complex, standards such as IEC 61508 evolved to create more comprehensive guidelines for implementing safety.
Moore Industries’ compliance with IEC 61508 significantly contributes toward the EMPHASIS assessment for Production Excellence, one of two “legs” used to substantiate safety to the regulator. The second leg involves Independent Confidence Building Measures – measures and techniques such as Static Analysis or Statistical Testing on a product’s source code to prevent potential systemic failures and also taking into account the application demands of the device to be deployed.
Moore Industries has been assessed against and used the EMPHASIS tool to achieve approval for four smart instruments, with a fifth instrument currently in the approval process. The “Vetting Smart Instruments for the Nuclear Industry” white paper briefly outlines the steps that Moore Industries took to ensure that these products were designed following strict adherence to the IEC 61508 standard and how using the EMPHASIS process allowed the company to improve the design and configure new and existing products for safety in nuclear-related fields.
More information on Moore Industries’ FS Functional Safety Series of products is available at our website.