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Jefferson Lab awarded $8M for accelerator technology to enable transmutation
The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility is leading research supported by two Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) grants aimed at developing accelerator technology to enable nuclear waste recycling, decreasing the half-life of spent nuclear fuel.
Both grants, totaling $8.17 million in combined funding, were awarded through the Nuclear Energy Waste Transmutation Optimized Now (NEWTON) program, which aims to enable the transmutation of nuclear fuels by funding novel technologies for improving the performance of particle generation systems.
Hanna Koskinen, Jari Laarni, Marja Liinasuo, Leena Salo
Nuclear Technology | Volume 209 | Number 3 | March 2023 | Pages 332-345
Technical Paper—Human-Machine Interface Technologies | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2022.2087840
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The Systems Usability Case (SUC) approach enables a requirement-based human factors (HF) evaluation of complex technical systems that may cover the entire verification and validation process. SUC is based on the Safety Case approach and on the Systems Usability (SU) construct. One of the main aims of establishing a Safety Case is to bring the arguments and evidence for safety to the front in such a way that the reasoning supports the work of a regulator or licensing organization. In the end, the approach enables evaluating the SU of a system and making a reasonable solid argument about the acceptance of the system for use. The question is how the conclusions are reached through a reasoning process in which the arguments are made about the evidence [i.e., identified human engineering discrepancies (HEDs)] to approve or reject the claim concerning the quality of the system. The paper presents an application of SUC to real data from an integrated system validation of the modernized control room (CR) of the Loviisa nuclear power plant. The results of the validation are discussed from the point of view of how the SUC approach enables forming a statement about the acceptance of the CR. Moreover, practical examples are given to demonstrate the identified HF issues and how they were handled in the validation process. The paper provides a general framework for handling of HEDs and for their resolution that can be used in the consolidation of validation test results in a real-world validation project.