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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.
Jae-Won Lee, Do-Youn Lee, Young-Soon Lee, Jae-Hwan Yang, Geun-Il Park, Jung-Won Lee, Hyoung-Mun Kwon, Yung-Zun Cho
Nuclear Technology | Volume 204 | Number 1 | October 2018 | Pages 101-109
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2018.1469347
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Performance tests of mechanical decladding technology for estimating the feeding portions of the recovered fuel fragments to an electrolytic reduction process were conducted in terms of the fuel rod burnups of 27.3 to 65.7 GWd/tonne uranium (tU) for the used pressurized water reactor nuclear fuel. The decladding efficiencies with fuel burnups were quantitatively obtained from slitting decladding tests. Based on the average fuel rod burnups, fuel rods with an average burnup of up to 52.3 GWd/tU showed above 99%, but higher burnup fuels of above 54.9 GWd/tU were below 97.52% in the decladding efficiency. It was interpreted that variations in decladding efficiency with fuel burnups were closely linked to the opening characteristics of the gap between the pellets and cladding. However, the fuel fragment size distribution after slitting decladding has little difference in fuel burnup changes between 34.8 and 55.4 GWd/tU. Hence, feeding portions of the fuel fragments from an assembly basis by using the decladding efficiency and recovered fragment size distribution data were estimated with burnup variations of 35 to 52.5 GWd/tU.