Torness Power Station
Torness & Heysham Power Stations
Torness Power Station
In 2005 the training department at Torness Nuclear Power station approached Cameron Communications with a view to developing a solution for recording trainees in the Flow Loop simulator training facility. Cameron’s were set out to tailor a bespoke solution to meet the requirements of the department.
One requirement was the necessity to record operatives from any of the key training points within the room along with the ability to zoom in close enough to read the labels, gauges or the pumps. The system also had to be able to record the audio of the individual operatives, with up to six people likely to be in the room at a given time.
As well as recording footage onto DVD or hard drive, they also needed to be able to show a live feed from the simulator into one of the neighbouring teaching rooms. The Elmo PTC450 camera with 12x optical and 16x digital zoom makes up the front end of the system. Personal tie clip microphones are given to the operatives to record the audio, with up to 6 microphones being used at any one time.
The hub of the system is the Freeway Archiver (a product developed in-house at Cameron's) which was adapted in order to satisfy the requirements of this project.
The system is controlled entirely from the neighbouring training room, meaning that once the operatives have entered the flow loop room the entire operation can be carried out including trainers interacting with the operatives, without having to enter or leave the flow loop building. The trainer can speak to or issue commands to operatives in the flow loop room over a paging microphone system, and they can also play a range of audio files over the system (such as different types of alarms) and then watch and record how the operatives react to the alarm or instruction.
The hub of the system is the Freeway Archiver (a product developed in-house at Cameron's) which was adapted in order to satisfy the requirements of this project. This part of the system gives the user complete control of the video camera, not limited to just panning and zooming, there are also 6 preset positions allowing quick selection of the more commonly used positions.
As well as facilitating the recording and storage of video and audio clips the file management aspect of the Freeway Archvier software allows the entire department to build up an archive of many hours worth of footage whether it be to keep selected footage of good and bad practice in the flow loop room, or whether it is to keep a complete visual and audio record of all sessions that have taken place.
There are 5 pre-programmable database fields so an operator can search for specific file(s) by key information such as date, name of trainer, name of trainee, exercise etc. These files can of course be played on the projector in the control/training room in the course of a lecture, or the desired files can be burned onto DVD and then played elsewhere in the plant.
The success of the system within the flow loop simulator has led to another five recording systems based around the Freeway Archiver being installed throughout Torness Power Station. There are now video only systems in the Mechanical Skills suite, Health Physics suite, C & I Training suite, and the Electrical Skills area. The Freeway Archiver has also been integrated with an existing system in the CCR simulator which now has 8 cameras and 8 tie clip radio microphones that can be switched and recorded to any one of 4 dedicated recording channels.
Heysham Power Station
Having seen the system in use at Torness, the training department at Heysham Power Station approached Cameron’s with a view to having a similar system installed for use in their own flow loop training suite. The main difference with the requirements at Heysham compared to Torness was the need to put in a portable rack to house all of the control equipment so that it could be moved between and used in 3 different training rooms.
