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The 15th UNENE Annual Workshop on Nuclear Instrumentation and Control (I&C) held at Kinectrics Inc.

Participants of the 15th Annual University Network of Excellence in Nuclear Engineering (UNENE) Workshop on Instrumentation and Control (I&C) Systems for Nuclear Power Plants at Kinectrics Inc.

Western Engineering News | January 27, 2020

University researchers, and industry experts and representatives from government gathered on November 22^nd, 2019 at Kinectrics Inc. for the 15th University Network of Excellence in Nuclear Engineering (UNENE) Annual Workshop on Instrumentation and Control (I&C) Systems for Nuclear Power Plants. This annual event was organized by Jing Jiang, a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Western and the NSERC/UNENE Senior Industrial Research Chair (IRC) in Instrumentation and Control.

There were over 40 participants including representatives from the Canadian and Korean nuclear industry. Angela Vieira from Kinectrics delivered the welcome speech, which was followed by opening remarks from Jerry Hopwood, the President of the UNENE. He discussed importance of collaboration between UNENE and the nuclear industries. He also explained how UNENE is working to help improve nuclear industry by facilitating exchange of ideas between academics and industry experts. Introductory speech was also delivered by Prof. Miriam Capretz, Associate Dean (Research) from Western Engineering.

Jiang and members of his research team presented the latest research progress. The director of Instrumentation and Control Research Division, Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), Chang-H. Kim, gave two presentations, one on Korean small modular reactor SMART (System-integrated Modular Advanced ReacTor) and the other on nuclear black box, a severe accident monitoring system for nuclear power plants. Representatives from Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC), Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), CANDU Owners Group (COG), Ontario Power Generation (OPG), Candu Energy and Kinectrics also shared their knowledge and experience on advanced instrumentation, measurement and control systems, technological and regulatory aspects for Small Modular Reactor (SMR), Safety Grade SCADA for NPPs, legacy control system and reverse engineering as well as recent activities on wireless based real-time monitoring systems and cyber-security in nuclear power plants. John Jackson from NSERC gave a presentation on NSERC Alliance and I2I Grants.

One of the highlights in this year’s workshop was a tour to three Kinectrics engineering facilities, the high-current lab, reverse engineering lab and radioactivity lab. The engineers and researchers from Kinectrics walked the participants through the labs and explained how works conducted in these labs help different industries in Canada and around the world.

UNENE was founded in 2002 to create a partnership between industry and universities.  It is now a well-established and fully functional framework with programs mainly focusing on serving the nuclear industry through education and research.  Through this NSERC/UNENE Senior Industrial Research Chair (IRC) program, Dr. Jiang has successfully trained over 60 HQPs over the last 16 years. Many of them are working in Canadian nuclear industries.

Industrial partners of the UNENE include 8 industry partners, 2 Federal Government agencies, and 13 Canadian universities.

For more information about the workshop, please contact Dr. Jing Jiang at jjiang@eng.uwo.ca