New AMS Technology Receives Approval from U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Late last year, a utility submitted a License Amendment Request or LAR to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to implement the Online Monitoring (OLM) Technology of Analysis and Measurement Services Corporation (AMS), marking the next step in deployment of the technology. This AMS technology was approved by the NRC in August 2021 in response to a topical report that AMS submitted to the NRC in July 2020. The writing of the topical report was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The topical report AMS-TR-0721R1-A and the NRC’s Safety Evaluation documents approving the online monitoring technology are available to the public on the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS).

OLM provides the nuclear industry with a tool to monitor the calibration of nuclear plant pressure, level, and flow transmitters while the plant is operating. The results will allow plants to identify any drifting transmitters that must be calibrated. This will help plants avoid calibrating transmitters that are not drifting. Today all the important transmitters are calibrated once every operating cycle because no technology was available until now to identify the transmitters that drift and therefore need a calibration.