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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.
Lefteri H. Tsoukalas, Robert E. Uhrig
Nuclear Technology | Volume 119 | Number 1 | July 1997 | Pages 48-62
Technical Paper | Reactor Control | doi.org/10.13182/NT77-A35394
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Computer hypermedia technologies offer significant possibilities for integrating data, information, and multifaceted knowledge resources abounding in existing and next-generation nuclear plant operations. A hypermedia system may be viewed as a set of nodes and links allowing nonlinear access to plant information residing in computers regardless of format. The process of accessing information in hypermedia systems is known as navigation. After a review of the state of the art, quantitative criteria are presented for the development of hypermedia databases and a fuzzy graph-based methodology for navigating the large information spaces involved in nuclear plant operations. In the developed methodology, membership functions embodying context-dependent criteria provide application-specific tools for navigation. The methodology is illustrated through numerical examples and a Hyper-Card-based prototypical system for monitoring special material in a next-generation nuclear reactor.