New

1
New Improved Meteorological Data Archives

• Kenneth G. Wastrack
• Jennifer M. Call
• D. Sherea Burns
• Tennessee Valley Authority

2
Data Storage Requirements

• Regulatory Guide 1.23, revision 1
• Requires meteorological data to be collected
  describes desired formats.
• ANS-3.11
• Specifies retention of raw meteorological data
  for a minimum of 5 years, validated data for
  the life of the facility.

3
Data Storage Requirements (cont.)

• SPP-5.9
• This is an internal Nuclear Power Group, TVA
  document.
• Identifies calibration maintenance history
  records for meteorological monitoring equipment,
  meteorological joint frequency distribution
  data as QA records which shall be retained for a
  minimum of 75 years ( until concurrence for
  disposal is received from the TVA Office of the
  General Counsel).

Meteorological Data are not explicitly identified
as QA records. However, since the output from
applications that use the data are QA records,
this implicitly requires the associated
meteorological data to be QA records as well.
4
Data Collection Processing

• Environmental Data Stations
• Collect the raw data perform processing into
  summaries.
• Transmit the data to the plant control room, the
  offsite Emergency Operations Facility a Remote
  Access Computer (RAC) for validation archiving.

5
Data Collection Processing (cont.)
6
Why Change?

• In 2007 two coinciding events made obvious the
  need for change
• A realignment of work activities caused the data
  validation function to be reassigned to staff
  unfamiliar with the Mainframe computer.
• TVA announced the planned retirement of the
  Mainframe computer.
• Historically, in order to conserve storage space
  meteorological data were converted into binary
  format which required special software to extract
  data into a useable format were available to
  a limited number of users.

7
Why Change? (cont.)

• TVA has collected meteorological data since the
  1950s (at nuclear sites since the 1970s)
  since that time computer data systems have
  changed significantly, numerous times, causing
  inconsistencies in the data.

• DOCUMENTATION of particularly the older data was
  not adequate in some cases critical information
  took the form of handwritten notes on faded paper.

8
Changes Needed

• File conversion to ASCII format for
  transportability across platforms computer
  systems
• Data tag format consistency
• Data consolidation into a single common location
• Better DOCUMENTATION

9
Actions Taken

• ID collect all relevant data files.
• Copy data files from the mainframe.
• Retrieve data that was never placed on the
  mainframe (PC-based files).
• Review available documentation determine the
  contents of the data files label the data
  values.
• In cases of multiple towers at a particular
  location, we had to identify which specific data
  applied to which station consolidate the data
  into a common set of files that were consistently
  formatted.

10
Actions Taken (cont.)

• Existing data applications that used customized
  data formats were adapted to use the new files.
• Extensive DOCUMENTATION was
  prepared describing the conversion
  process the new archival system.

11
New Archival Data Storage

• Data are stored on a network drive accessible by
  various computer systems by authorized users
  from anywhere on the TVA network.
• Regular data back-ups to an offsite location
  copies for QA records storage.
• Data are in ASCII format to allow users to
  directly view the information permit
  multi-platform access.

12
Future Activities

• Make data available to more users through a
  web-based method.
• Expand auto-screening techniques to older data,
  currently performed on more recent data, for
  completeness to allow review of extreme data
  limits.
• Additional DOCUMENTATION to describe
  instrumentation characteristics, data
  collection methodologies, etc.
• Locate store any additional data such as data
  presently available only in hardcopy form.

13
Lessons Learned

• Develop a common data format convert all files
  for consistency which will allow the use of
  common data processing analysis software.
• DOCUMENTATION Describe data
  formats provide relevant information
  about data collection processing.