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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.
Volkan Seker, Haining Zhou, Thomas J. Downar
Nuclear Technology | Volume 206 | Number 6 | June 2020 | Pages 805-824
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2019.1703464
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Transient Reactor Test Facility (TREAT) was designed in the late 1950s to test nuclear fuels and materials under extreme conditions and has been recently restarted by the U.S. Department of Energy to provide the transient test capability to evaluate the performance of innovative nuclear fuels under accident conditions. Benchmark experiment data are required to support the operation of TREAT and to validate the computational analyses necessary to design and evaluate the experiments. Therefore, in this paper, benchmark problems based on the minimum critical (MC) core and M8 Power Calibration Experiment (M8CAL) core of TREAT were developed and analyzed using the Monte Carlo code Serpent. The eigenvalue, temperature coefficient, and flux distributions for both the MC core and the M8CAL cores were calculated and compared to the experimental data. All the calculated values compared well to the experimental data, and both problems were subsequently approved as International Reactor Physics Experiment Evaluation Project benchmarks.