The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 11, 2003
Filed:
Feb. 10, 2000
Albert W. Crew, Murrysville, PA (US);
William D. Ghrist, III, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Carl A. Vitalbo, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Glenn E. Lang, Cabot, PA (US);
Thomas Pierce Hayes, McMurray, PA (US);
Westinghouse Electric Company LLC, Pittsburgh, PA (US);
Abstract
A protection system for a complex process has four redundant protection sets, each of which produces partial reactor trip and partial safeguard actuation signals in pairs of microprocessor-based controllers. Two independent and redundant voting logic trains are provided for the partial reactor trip signals, and two identical, independent and redundant voting logic trains are provided for the partial safeguard actuation signals. Each of the trains includes a pair of redundant microprocessor-based voting logic controllers, each of which receives the partial reactor trip or partial safeguard actuation signals from each of the process protection sets and has a voting processor which generates an intermediate reactor trip or intermediate safeguard actuation signal in response to partial signals from a predetermined number of protection sets. The intermediate signals from the two voting logic controllers in each train are ANDed to generate train signals. The reactor trip train signals are then ORed to generate a reactor trip signal. Each of the train safeguard actuation signals activates a separate set of redundant components.