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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.
Yoshinori Miyoshi, Takuya Umano, Kotaro Tonoike, Naoki Izawa, Susumu Sugikawa, Shuji Okazaki
Nuclear Technology | Volume 118 | Number 1 | April 1997 | Pages 69-82
Technical Paper | Kiyose Birthday Anniversary Special / Nuclear Criticality Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT97-A35358
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A series of critical experiments with 10% enriched uranyl nitrate solution using a cylindrical core tank 60 cm in diameter have been performed with the Static Experiment Critical Facility at the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Safety Engineering Research Facility in the Tokai research establishment of the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. In the first series of experiments using the cylindrical core tank, systematic data of the critical height for water-reflected cores and unreflected cores were obtained by changing the uranium concentration of the fuel solution from 313 to 225 g U/ℓ. As the reactivity of each core is controlled only by solution height, these criticality configurations, which have simple cylindrical shapes, are available for the validation of calculation codes used in criticality safety designs of nuclear fuel cycle facilities. The neutron multiplication factors of experimental cores were calculated with the two-dimensional transport code TWOTRAN in the SRAC code system and with the continuous-energy Monte Carlo code MCNP4A, employing the Japanese evaluated nuclear data library JENDL-3.2. The calculations from the combination of these calculation codes and the nuclear data library reproduce the neutron multiplication factors within an error of 0.9% for the experimental configuration of critical cores.