IEC 61513 ED3

Nuclear power plants - Instrumentation and control important to safety - General requirements for systems

Scope

IEC 61513:2026 provides requirements and recommendations for the overall I&C which may contain one or several of these technologies.
This document highlights also the need for complete and precise requirements, derived from the plant safety goals, as a pre-requisite for generating the comprehensive requirements for the overall I&C, and hence for the individual I&C systems important to safety.
This document introduces the concept of a safety lifecycle for the overall I&C including the I&C architecture, and a safety lifecycle for the individual systems. By this, it highlights the relations between the safety objectives of the NPP and the requirements for the architecture of the I&C systems important to safety, and the relations between the I&C architecture and the requirements of the individual systems important to safety. Standards such as ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 provide an overarching concept of system life cycle provisions covering product-related processes as well business development. The scope of IEC 61513 refers to safety aspects and their demonstration, and significantly deepens the considerations of ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 in this field.
The lifecycles illustrated in and followed by this document are not the only ones possible; other lifecycles can be followed, provided that the requirements stated in this document are satisfied.

This document applies to the I&C of new nuclear power plants as well as to I&C upgrading or back-fitting of existing plants.