Application of Plant Information Models to Manage Design Knowledge through the Nuclear Power Plant Life Cycle

A plant information model (PIM) is a set of interlinked information about plant structures, systems and components, incorporating plant data, relationships and rules used to integrate, represent, and describe nuclear facility processes and data, for each phase of the facility lifecycle. Application of the PIM provides an opportunity to radically improve knowledge, information and data capture, integration, use and transfer between stakeholders if industry-wide standards and best practices are adopted. A knowledge-centric plant information model could be developed and leveraged as a modern and efficient approach to better support, manage and enable seamless sharing, transfer and use of sustainable design knowledge within and across each nuclear power plant life cycle phase. The purpose of this publication is to provide an overview of PIMs, emphasize the importance of their application in support and management of design knowledge throughout the nuclear power plant life cycle and present an overview of a knowledge-centric plant information model that builds on the basic concept of a PIM. The target users of this publication are decision-making organizations in Member States having experience with nuclear power programmes and those embarking on new nuclear power programmes.