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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.
L. Bosland, L. Cantrel, N. Girault, B. Clement
Nuclear Technology | Volume 171 | Number 1 | July 2010 | Pages 88-107
Technical Paper | Radioisotopes | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-A10774
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In the case of a hypothetical severe accident in a nuclear power plant, iodine is one of the fission products of major importance. It may be present in various gaseous forms that could be released to the environment, impacting population health. In such a case, the amount released (the so-called "source term") has to be estimated in order to help the safety authorities protect the population from radiological consequences. This estimation is one of the main objectives of the Accident Source Term Evaluation Code (ASTEC) that is developed jointly by the French Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire (IRSN) and the German institute Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit. ASTEC is composed of various modules able to model the nuclear reactor behavior during an accident. One of these modules, named IODE, predicts iodine behavior in the reactor containment. It is able to model the kinetics of about 35 chemical reactions and mass transfer processes. IODE is validated against separate effect tests, semi-integral experiments, and integral experiments. This paper presents the experimental phenomena that would take place in reactor containment in the case of a severe accident. Then, IODE is used to model the experimental gaseous concentration of organic and inorganic iodine in the PHEBUS FPT-2 test carried out by IRSN. The comparison of experimental data and the modeling show a general good agreement for inorganic iodine even if some differences are evidenced. For organic iodides the modeling is not satisfying. These differences might be explained by the deficiencies of some models and by some assumptions that still have to be validated by dedicated experiments.