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L-3 Mapps’ Orchid Technology to be Installed on Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant Simulator

The project will begin immediately, and the upgraded simulator is slated to be delivered at the end of the year. Recently, L-3 MAPPS completed a similar upgrade to the Fort Calhoun classroom simulator.

"The Fort Calhoun simulator refurbishment is one of L-3 MAPPS’ recent flagship projects and the largest US nuclear power plant simulator replacement in over a decade," said Michael Chatlani, vice president of marketing and sales for L-3 MAPPS Power Systems and Simulation. "It is gratifying that our hard work paid off and that OPPD is moving ahead with adopting Orchid."
"We are pleased with the performance of our simulator with L-3 MAPPS software tools and plant models," added Mark Gutierrez, simulator supervisor at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station.

L-3’s previous generation simulation software development and maintenance tools will be upgraded with L-3 MAPPS’ portfolio of Orchid products, including the Orchid Simulator Executive, Orchid Configuration Manager, Orchid Instructor Station, Orchid Network Loader, Orchid Modeling Environment and Orchid Graphic Editor. OPPD will supply the computer hardware, the required Windows operating systems and other third-party software required for the upgrade. In addition to ensuring efficient communications with the existing simulator control room’s input/output system, L-3 MAPPS will provide a new interface to the emergency response facility data acquisition and display system already on site.

OPPD is one of the largest publicly owned electric utilities in the US, serving more than 340,000 customers in 13 southeastern Nebraska counties. The refurbished Fort Calhoun simulator, which was declared ready for training on 6 September 2006, services a single Combustion Engineering pressurised water reactor unit at the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Station located 19 miles north of Omaha. A power uprate is planned in 2012 to boost the 484MWe plant’s generating capacity by 75MWe to 80MWe.