Issues of New Technological Trends in Nuclear Power Plant (NPPs) for Standardized Breakdown Structure

Recent efforts to develop a common standard for nuclear power plants (NPPs) with the aim of creating (1) a digital environment for a better understanding of NPPs life-cycle management aspect and (2) engineering data interoperability by using existing standards among different unspecified project participants (e.g., owners/operators, engineers, contractors, equipment suppliers) during plants' life cycle process (EPC, O&M, and decommissioning). In order to meet this goal, there is a need for formulating a standardized high-level physical breakdown structure (PBS) for NPPs project management office (PMO). However, high-level PBS must be comprehensive enough and able to represent the different types of plants and the new trends of technologies in the industry. This has triggered the need for addressing the issues of the recent operational NPPs and future technologies' ramification for evaluating the changes in the NPPs physical components in terms of structure, system, and component (SSC) configuration. In this context, this ongoing study examines the recent conventional NPPs and technological trends in the development of future NPPs facilities. New reactor models regarding the overlap of variant issues of nuclear technology were explored. Finally, issues on PBS for project management are explored by the examination of the configuration of NPPs primary system. The primary systems' configuration of different reactor models is assessed in order to clarify the need for analyzing the new trends in nuclear technology and to formulate a common high-level PBS. Findings and implications are discussed for further studies.