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August 24–27, 2026
Dallas, TX|Hilton Anatole
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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.
Lei Jin, Hui He, Xutao Pei, Yu Zhou, Hongguo Hou, Meng Zhang, Shuai He, Yang Gao, Haitao Ma
Nuclear Technology | Volume 211 | Number 11 | November 2025 | Pages 2797-2811
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2025.2461426
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Because of the complex mechanisms in pulsed disk and doughnut columns (PDDCs), traditional empirical functions often fail to make accurate predictions in new datasets, such as different experimental conditions or different PDDC structures, indicating a lack of generalizability. In this work, some machine learning techniques such as random forest regression (RFR), least absolute shrinkage and selection operator, support vector regression (SVR), and artificial neural network are developed to predict dispersed phase holdup based on experimental data collected from numerous studies. Two training methods were used: One is to randomly divide the collected data into groups for training and testing, and the other is to separate the data of one study for testing and training in data from other studies. These methods were used to compare and analyze the accuracy, generalizability, and stability of these models, using the mean relative error (MRE) as the performance evaluation criterion. SVR has an MRE of 15.0% in the test set and 11.0% in the entire dataset, outperforming other alternative models in both efficiency and ability to mitigate overfitting. Furthermore, the relative importance of each parameter in influencing holdup was analyzed by RFR.