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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.
Vinay Kumar, Lalit Singh, A. K. Tripathi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 197 | Number 1 | January 2017 | Pages 20-28
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NT16-89
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Any risk in safety-critical or control applications may lead to catastrophic disaster; hence, safety is a primary concern for such applications. The impact of risk varies from minor inconvenience and cost to personal injury, significant economic loss, and death. Therefore, a safety assessment process should be an inherent part of the system development process to make a system safe or to ensure that the effects from failures are minimized. This paper deals with a new probabilistic approach to quantify the safety of safety-critical systems (SCSs) and control systems based on probabilistic safety assessment to deal with the shortcomings of the existing techniques. The methodology has been tested on 29 operational data sets to validate its effectiveness. This paper demonstrates the methodology on the digital feedwater controller system of a nuclear power plant. The results indicate that the method can identify possible hazards and quantify such hazards of a SCS.