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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.
Michitsugu Mori
Nuclear Technology | Volume 128 | Number 2 | November 1999 | Pages 205-215
Technical Paper | RETRAN | doi.org/10.13182/NT99-A3025
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The advanced boiling water reactor (ABWR) has ten reactor-internal pumps peripherally mounted on the bottom of a reactor vessel. Analytical simulation of reactor-internal pumps unique to the ABWR requires new modeling because of the difference in core flow characteristics between the reactor-internal pumps and the two external-recirculation pumps of the primary outer loops with the jet pumps in a current boiling water reactor. Efforts in this work focused on modeling and simulation of reactor-internal pumps and core flow of the ABWR, using the RETRAN-3D code, the computer program for transient thermal-hydraulic analysis of a complex fluid flow system, without multidimensional kinetics. Included are modeling of the core and reactor pressure vessel with ten reactor-internal pumps, and simulation of the events of reactor-internal-pumps trip during the startup-phase tests, which are unable to be done in the simulation of a current BWR. Sensitivity analyses on the recirculation flow control and the slip model were also performed. The predictions by the RETRAN-3D code successfully tracked the measured data of reactor-internal-pump trip during the startup-phase test. The present analytical simulations could demonstrate the validation of the RETRAN-3D code applicable to the ABWR with the pump model of reactor-internal pumps in the program.