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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.
Sukho Lee, In-Goo Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 130 | Number 1 | April 2000 | Pages 18-26
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT00-A3074
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The critical reactor header break and the thermosiphoning experiments in the RD-14 test facility were simulated with the RELAP5/MOD3.1 code. The RELAP5 code has been developed for best-estimate transient simulation of pressurized water reactors and associated systems, but it has not been assessed for a Canada deuterium uranium (CANDU) reactor. Therefore, this study has been initiated with an aim to identify the code applicability in a CANDU reactor by simulating some of the tests performed in the RD-14 facility. The RD-14 test facility at Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment is a full-scale pressurized-water loop. The RD-14 is not a scale model of any particular CANDU reactor. Rather, it possesses many geometric features of a CANDU reactor heat transport system and is capable of operating at conditions similar to those expected to occur in a reactor under normal operation and some postulated accident conditions. In this study, two critical reactor header break tests (B8711 and B8713) and three thermosiphoning tests (T8513, T8515, and T8517) were analyzed with the RELAP5 code. The results were compared with experimental data and those of CATHENA performed by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. The RELAP5 analyses demonstrate the code's capability to predict reasonably the main phenomena occurring in the transient, in both the qualitative and the quantitative view. However, some discrepancies after the emergency coolant injection for the critical break case and also related to the behaviors of the mass flow rate and the primary pressure for the thermosiphoning case were observed.