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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.
Mohamed Tahar Sissaoui, Guy Marleau, Daniel Rozon
Nuclear Technology | Volume 125 | Number 2 | February 1999 | Pages 197-212
Technical Paper | Fission Reactors | doi.org/10.13182/NT99-A2942
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A new model has been developed to evaluate the variation of few-group cross sections with local parameters and the history of the reactor. This model allows us to generate a coherent set of nuclear cross sections for a CANDU cell. The history dependence of the nuclide concentrations is taken into account by creating a pseudo-isotope, which includes actinides whose concentrations are strongly affected by local parameter history. Simple physical considerations lead us to determine the law of variation of the cross sections as a function of these parameters. They permit the computation of the cross sections for each state of the reactor core, using a unique library for each type of cell, which contains the nuclear cross sections computed at nominal conditions and feedback coefficients. To validate the feedback model, several operational situations were tested, and the results are compared to those given by a transport calculation using the DRAGON cell code.