Quality Assurance and NSTX/U Startup

1
NSTX-U
Supported by
Quality Assurance Readiness for Operations Review
Coll of Wm Mary Columbia U CompX General
Atomics FIU INL Johns Hopkins U LANL LLNL Lodestar
MIT Lehigh U Nova Photonics Old
Dominion ORNL PPPL Princeton U Purdue U SNL Think
Tank, Inc. UC Davis UC Irvine UCLA UCSD U
Colorado U Illinois U Maryland U Rochester U
Tennessee U Tulsa U Washington U Wisconsin X
Science LLC
Culham Sci Ctr York U Chubu U Fukui U Hiroshima
U Hyogo U Kyoto U Kyushu U Kyushu Tokai
U NIFS Niigata U U Tokyo JAEA Inst for Nucl Res,
Kiev Ioffe Inst TRINITI Chonbuk Natl
U NFRI KAIST POSTECH Seoul Natl
U ASIPP CIEMAT FOM Inst DIFFER ENEA,
Frascati CEA, Cadarache IPP, Jülich IPP,
Garching ASCR, Czech Rep
Judy Malsbury, Head of QA
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory NSTX Upgrade
LSB B318 December 9-11, 2014
2
PPPL Quality Assurance

• Independently funded by overhead, not NSTX/U
• Procurement QA
• gt200 separate procurements for NSTX/U
• Helps assure that quality requirements for
  procurements are properly specified and
  satisfied, e.g. baffles, lead extensions,
  windows, coatings, mirror assemblies, .
• Suspect and counterfeit items
• Receipt Inspection New position added for
  NSTX/U as a result of a problem vendor.
• Performs supplier visits to detect problems early
  in the manufacturing process
• Performs receipt inspection at PPPL to assure
  that we received what we ordered.

3
PPPL Quality Assurance (contd)

• Quality Control
• Monitors work in the field to assure compliance
  with requirements
• Covers welding, permeability, electrical
  installations, critical lifts, control of
  configuration
• Audits and Assessments
• Programs, processes, and events
• Technical, quality, and ESH related
• Causal analyses
• Tracking and verification
• Corrective actions from audits/assessments/causal
  analyses, NCRs, ORPS/NTS action items, design
  review chits
• Generates agenda for and minutes from monthly
  Assessments and Actions Items Meetings
• 781 lbs of weld wire was bought by PPPL for
  welding on the vessel.

4
NSTX/U Startup Process Audit

• Performance Objective PPPL is able to
  demonstrate that it has successfully performed or
  will be ready to perform the defined start-up
  tests for NSTX prior to the scheduled start-up.
• Governing documents
• OP-NSTX-02, Rev. 14, Start Up of NSTX-U (draft)
  and associated spreadsheet of procedures and
  documentation status
• OP-NSTX-12, Rev. 5, NSTX Operations Training
• A snapshot review of the readiness of the project
  to perform a start-up review
• Performed last half June, 2014
• Report dated July 11, 2014
• Audit requested by the Chair of the ACC

5
Observation 1 - Procedures

• At the time of the audit (June 2014), the
  schedule for performing pre-operational test
  procedures was not well defined.
• Audit recommendation was to generate and maintain
  a tracking system for all the procedures.
• The project developed a tracking spreadsheet
  (excerpt shown)

6
Observation 2 - Training

• The audit team questioned the training for COEs
  and Physics Operators adequate given the high
  energy levels that NSTX/U will achieve and the
  new systems being installed.
• The project response indicated that
• The COEs are trained by the cognizant system
  engineers (and in some cases, are in fact the
  system engineers) prior to operation including
  "at-the-controls" training during testing.
• The Physics Operations will direct previously
  approved machine or experimental proposals, but
  all machine operating limits remain under the
  control of the COE and engineered protection
  systems.

7
Observation 3 Design Issues

• At the time of the audit, it was not clear if all
  design issues, identified via design chits, would
  be resolved prior to installations and
  operations.
• The project response indicated that design review
  chits were diligently being tracked with closure
  confirmed by QA.

8
Questions?