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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.
A. Bujan, B. Tóth, A. Bieliauskas, R. Zeyen, C. Housiadas
Nuclear Technology | Volume 169 | Number 1 | January 2010 | Pages 1-17
Technical Paper | Reactor Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT10-A9339
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Phébus FP tests study the phenomenology of severe accidents in water-cooled nuclear reactors. The first test, FPT0, was performed with fuel irradiated for only 1 week; the second test, FPT1, was performed with fairly similar boundary conditions but with irradiated fuel (burnup: 23 GWd/t). The objective of this work is, on the one hand, to summarize the main experimental results of these two tests concerning the behavior and transport of fission products and structural materials in the circuit and, on the other hand, to identify or to confirm any modeling weaknesses in the SOPHAEROS/ASTEC V1 module used for interpreting the experimental results. Besides comparison with available experimental data, the main results of the entire circuit analyses are compared with former SOPHAEROS/ASTEC V0 analyses and, for so-called quasi-separated steam generator tubes, with one- and two-dimensional Eulerian and Lagrangian (particle tracking) models.Concerning the transport of iodine vapor species, it is shown that the results obtained are compatible with passage of nonnegligible amounts of the measured highly volatile iodine through circuit to containment. It is also shown that these results depend heavily on the considered kinetics of Cd release from the bundle.