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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.
Hooman Javidnia, Jin Jiang, Majid Borairi
Nuclear Technology | Volume 165 | Number 2 | February 2009 | Pages 174-189
Technical Paper | Nuclear Plant Operations and Control | doi.org/10.13182/NT09-A4084
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
This paper presents the development of a flexible and user-friendly reactor core dynamic model of a CANadian Deuterium Uranium (CANDU) reactor for control system applications using the commercial simulation package MATLAB/SIMULINK. The reactor core is divided into 14 zones, and a set of coupled kinetics equations are developed to describe the dynamic behavior of the zones. The interaction between neighboring zones is characterized in terms of coupling coefficients, which basically describe the possibility of a neutron born in one zone causing a nuclear reaction in another zone. The model also includes the dynamics of the xenon and iodine. Nondimensionalized representations of the reactor dynamic model are derived in detail. It is demonstrated that vectorization of dynamic variables can significantly simplify the modeling and simulation process for a multizone reactor. Transient behavior of the reactor has been simulated using the developed model.