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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.
Sule Ergun, Jason G. Williams, Lawrence E. Hochreiter, Hergen Wiersema, Marcel Slootman, Marek Stempniewicz
Nuclear Technology | Volume 156 | Number 1 | October 2006 | Pages 69-74
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT06-A3774
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Critical heat flux (CHF) at a natural boiling condition is an important phenomenon for a research reactor having a small-hydraulic-diameter geometry under a large-break loss-of-coolant accident condition. Accurately predicting the CHF under this condition is very important; therefore, the CHF models used in the best-estimate codes must be validated using appropriate experimental data for a given geometry. The present work focuses on validating the CHF calculations and models within the COolant Boiling in Rod Arrays-Two Fluid (COBRA-TF) code by simulating two sets of experiments, which were performed in tubes and annuli with different length-to-diameter ratios. In this work, the cocurrent upflow and downflow correlations developed by Mishima and Nishihara and Holowach et al. and Zuber correlations for the CHF used in COBRA-TF are validated against the experimental data obtained by Monde and Yamaji and Islam et al. Conclusions on the predictive capability of COBRA-TF for the CHF calculations for small-hydraulic-diameter geometry under natural boiling conditions are provided with the description of the correlations and models used.