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The human factor in licensing and operating the next generation of nuclear plants
As human factors specialists working at the intersection of human performance and nuclear operations, we are witnessing one of the nuclear sector’s most significant transitions in decades. The emergence of small modular reactors, microreactors, and other advanced designs is reshaping the industry’s landscape. Digital instrumentation and controls, passive safety systems, and increased automation are creating opportunities for greater safety margins and more flexible operation. These same features also fundamentally redefine what it means to “operate” a nuclear plant. Interactions among human roles, automation, and passive systems shape how people maintain awareness, exercise judgment, and intervene when necessary. These developments affect both operational realities and the regulatory foundations on which nuclear safety is built.
Y. A. Chao, P. Huang
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 103 | Number 4 | December 1989 | Pages 415-419
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE89-A23693
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A superfast, multidimensional, and compact pressurized water reactor nodal code, SUPERNOVA (SPNOVA), which is much faster than conventional nodal codes and is very accurate, has been developed at Westinghouse Electric Corporation. A kinetics version of this code, SPNOVA-K, is now developed for applications to three-dimensional core kinetics analysis. The theory involved in the kinetics generalization of SPNOVA is discussed and the performance of SPNOVA-K is described. SPNOVA-K adopts the stiffness confinement method of time variable discretization. This method can provide a very stable solution against the size of the discrete time step, allowing much larger step sizes to be used.