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Division Spotlight
Reactor Physics
The division's objectives are to promote the advancement of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental physical phenomena characterizing nuclear reactors and other nuclear systems. The division encourages research and disseminates information through meetings and publications. Areas of technical interest include nuclear data, particle interactions and transport, reactor and nuclear systems analysis, methods, design, validation and operating experience and standards. The Wigner Award heads the awards program.
Meeting Spotlight
2024 ANS Annual Conference
June 16–19, 2024
Las Vegas, NV|Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
G7 pledges support for nuclear at Italy meeting
The Group of Seven (G7) recommitted its support for nuclear energy in the countries that opt to use it at a Ministerial Meeting on Climate in Italy last month.
In a statement following the April meeting, the group committed to support multilateral efforts to strengthen the resilience of nuclear supply chains, referencing the goal set by 25 countries during last year’s COP28 climate conference in Dubai to triple global nuclear generating capacity by 2050.
Hanna Koskinen, Jari Laarni, Marja Liinasuo, Leena Salo
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 3 | March 2023 | Pages 332-345
Technical Paper—Human-Machine Interface Technologies | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2087840
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Systems Usability Case (SUC) approach enables a requirement-based human factors (HF) evaluation of complex technical systems that may cover the entire verification and validation process. SUC is based on the Safety Case approach and on the Systems Usability (SU) construct. One of the main aims of establishing a Safety Case is to bring the arguments and evidence for safety to the front in such a way that the reasoning supports the work of a regulator or licensing organization. In the end, the approach enables evaluating the SU of a system and making a reasonable solid argument about the acceptance of the system for use. The question is how the conclusions are reached through a reasoning process in which the arguments are made about the evidence [i.e., identified human engineering discrepancies (HEDs)] to approve or reject the claim concerning the quality of the system. The paper presents an application of SUC to real data from an integrated system validation of the modernized control room (CR) of the Loviisa nuclear power plant. The results of the validation are discussed from the point of view of how the SUC approach enables forming a statement about the acceptance of the CR. Moreover, practical examples are given to demonstrate the identified HF issues and how they were handled in the validation process. The paper provides a general framework for handling of HEDs and for their resolution that can be used in the consolidation of validation test results in a real-world validation project.