Axpo

Department
Nuclear Safety Department, Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant, Switzerland

Your responsibilities
Efficient work in the complex environment of a nuclear power plant requires keeping key information up to date in a limited set of documents. Of particular importance are the design specifications which define the safety-relevant requirements for systems & components. Design specifications at KKL were written by the original supplier of the nuclear reactor as well as a variety of companies who supplied supporting systems as well as systems installed during plant upgrades. Documents have different naming conventions and are mostly written by typewriter and scanned without OCR. In order to better manage the information, a simple database is planned to allow a better overview and facilitate finding information. Its implementation is broken down into three tasks:

• Task 1 (main scope of internship): Identify the relevant design specifications and other key documents at KKL. Create a simple database which assigns the various documents to the plant systems as well as overlying topics such as environmental conditions, system pressures etc. Design a graphical user interface for the database which allows for easy navigation through the documents (and possibly also adding new documents through the GUI).
• Task 2 (possible further development depending on time/skills): Investigate the existing options for OCR with the purpose of digitalizing the typewritten text as accurately as possible.
• Task 3 (possible further development depending on time/skills): Extract key requirements from design specifications and add them to database.

Your profile

• Knowledge of database programming (Microsoft Access, SQL or similar)
• Knowledge of English
• Knowledge of German is desired but not required; programming skills are more important
• Working independently and bringing in own ideas
• Cooperation and communication with employees from different groups/departments (IT, archive, mechanical and electrical departments)

We offer
You will have the opportunity to work alongside nuclear experts and apply your academic and research background in real industrial applications. In this project you will have the opportunity to work at the Leibstadt nuclear power plant. Depending on the outcome of the project a master thesis project could be proposed.