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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.
Ping-Hue Huang, Jing-Tong Yang, Jen-Ying Wu
Nuclear Technology | Volume 108 | Number 1 | October 1994 | Pages 137-150
Technical Note | Nuclear Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT94-A35049
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Qualification efforts have been performed by the Taiwan Power Company (TPC) and the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (INER) for the three-dimensional spatial kinetics code ARROTTA for light water reactor (LWR) core transient analysis. Together TPC and INER started a 5-yr project in 1989 to establish independent capabilities to perform reload design and transient analysis utilizing state-of-the-art computer programs. As part of the effort, the ARROTTA code was chosen to perform multidimensional kinetics calculations such as rod ejection for pressurized water reactors and rod drop for boiling water reactors (BWR). To qualify ARROTTA for evaluation of the Final Safety Analysis Report licensing basis core transients, ARROTTA has been benchmarked for the static core analysis against plant measured data and SIMULATE-3 predictions, and for the kinetic analysis against available benchmark problems. The static calculations compared include critical boron concentration, core power distribution, and control rod worth. The results indicate that ARROTTA predictions match very well with plant measured data and SIMULATE-3 predictions. The kinetic benchmark problems validated include the Nuclear Energy Agency Committee on Reactor Physics rod ejection problem, the three-dimensional Langenbuch-Maurer- Werner LWR rod withdrawal/insertion problem, and the three-dimensional linear regression analysis BWR transient benchmark problem. The results indicate that ARROTTA’s accuracy and stability are excellent as compared with other space-time kinetics codes. It is therefore concluded that ARROTTA provides accurate predictions for multidimensional core transients for LWRs.