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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.
Sang Yong Lee, Jae Jun Jeong, Si-Hwan Kim, Soon Heung Chang
Nuclear Technology | Volume 99 | Number 2 | August 1992 | Pages 177-187
Technical Paper | Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT99-177
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The best-estimate thermal-hydraulic codes RE-LAP5/MOD3 and COBRA-TF were adopted to the Apollo DN 10000 workstation and subsequently merged. This was done to combine the excellent features of the two codes and thus produce a code with much enhanced capability. The resulting code was named COBRA /RELAPS. This code has features in common with COBRA/TRAC or TRAC-PF1: three-dimensional reactor vessel and one-dimensional loop modeling capability. The merging of the two codes is focused on the hydrodynamic model and numerical solution schemes. In COBRA/RELAP5, the system pressure matrices of the two codes are merged and solved simultaneously. The merged COBRA/RELAP5 calculations are done in process-level parallel mode on the Apollo DN10000 computer with two central processing units. Through various test simulations, the merging scheme and its implementation were proven to be valid. Thus, the code predictability is presumed eventually to depend on the generic capabilities of COBRA-TF and RELAP5/MOD3. However, to evaluate the overall code capability of COBRA /RELAP5, a systematic assessment should be done, including multidimensional effect tests.