• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 1996.05a
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• pp.349-354
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• 1996

SACOM(Simulation Analyser with Cognitive Operator Model) is being developed at Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute to simulate human operator's cognitive characteristics during the emergency situations of nuclear power plans. An operator model with error mechanisms has been developed and combined into SACOM to simulate human operator's cognitive information process based on the Rasmussen's decision ladder model. The operational logic for five different cognitive activities (Agents), operator's attentional control (Controller), short-term memory (Blackboard), and long-term memory (Knowledge Base) have been developed and implemented on blackboard architecture. A trial simulation with a scenario for emergency operation has been performed to verify the operational logic. It was found that the operator model with error mechanisms is suitable for the simulation of operator's cognitive behavior in emergency situation.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.703-716
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• 2007

As digital and computer technologies have grown, human-machine interfaces (HMIs) have evolved. In safety-critical systems, especially in nuclear power plants (NPPs), HMIs are important for reducing operational costs, the number of necessary operators, and the probability of accident occurrence. Efforts have been made to improve main control room (MCR) interface design and to develop automated or decision support systems to ensure convenient operation and maintenance. In this paper, an integrated decision support system to aid operator cognitive processes is proposed for advanced MCRs of future NPPs. This work suggests the design concept of a decision support system which accounts for an operator's cognitive processes. The proposed system supports not only a particular task, but also the entire operation process based on a human cognitive process model. In this paper, the operator's operation processes are analyzed according to a human cognitive process model and appropriate support systems that support each cognitive process activity are suggested.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.9
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• pp.1983-1989
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• 2020

The human reliability analysis is a method by which, in general terms, the human impact to the safety and risk of a nuclear power plant operation can be modelled, quantified and analysed. It is an indispensable element of the PSA process within the nuclear industry nowadays. The paper herein presents a sensitivity study of the human reliability analysis performed on a real nuclear power plant-specific probabilistic safety assessment model. The analysis is performed on a pre-selected set of post-initiator operator actions. The purpose of the study is to investigate the impact of these operator actions on the plant risk by altering their corresponding human error probabilities in a wide spectrum. The results direct the fact that the future effort should be focused on maintaining the current human reliability level, i.e. not letting it worsen, rather than improving it.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.984-994
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• 2020

It is reported that about 20% of accidents at nuclear power plants in Korea and abroad are caused by human error. One of the main factors contributing to human error is fatigue, so it is necessary to prevent human errors that may occur when the task is performed in an improper state by grasping the status of the operator in advance. In this study, we propose a method of evaluating operator's fitness-for-duty (FFD) using various parameters including eye movement data, subjective fatigue ratings, and operator's performance. Parameters for evaluating FFD were selected through a literature survey. We performed experiments that test subjects who felt various levels of fatigue monitor information of indicators and diagnose a system malfunction. In order to find meaningful characteristics in measured data consisting of various parameters, hierarchical clustering analysis, an unsupervised machine-learning technique, is used. The characteristics of each cluster were analyzed; fitness-for-duty of each cluster was evaluated. The appropriateness of the number of clusters obtained through clustering analysis was evaluated using both the Elbow and Silhouette methods. Finally, it was statistically shown that the suggested methodology for evaluating FFD does not generate additional fatigue in subjects. Relevance to industry: The methodology for evaluating an operator's fitness for duty in advance is proposed, and it can prevent human errors that might be caused by inappropriate condition in nuclear industries.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.467-481
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• 1996

An integrated framework of modeling the human operator cognitive behavior during nuclear power plant accident scenarios is presented. It incorporates both plant and operator models. The basic structure of the operator model is similar to that of existing cognitive models, however, this model differs from those existing ones largely in too aspects. First, using frame and membership function, the pattern matching behavior, which is identified as the dominant cognitive process of operators responding to an accident sequence, is explicitly implemented in this model. Second, the non-task-related human cognitive activities like effect of stress and cognitive biases such as confirmation bias and availability bias, are also considered. A computer code, OPEC is assembled to simulate this framework and is actually applied to an SGTR sequence, and the resultant simulated behaviors of operator are obtained.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.229-234
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• 2012

Operator's action time is evaluated from MAAP4 analysis used in conventional probabilistic safety assessment(PSA) of a nuclear power plant. MAAP4 code which was developed for severe accident analysis is too conservative to perform a realistic PSA. A best-estimate code such as RELAP5/MOD3, MARS has been used to reduce the conservatism of thermal hydraulic analysis. In this study, operator's action time of core cooling recovery operation is evaluated by using the MARS code, which its Fussell-Vessely(F-V) value was evaluated as highly important in a small break loss of coolant(SBLOCA) event and loss of component cooling water(LOCCW) event in previous PSA. The main conclusions were elicited : (1) MARS analysis provides larger time window for operator's action time than MAAP4 analysis and gives the more realistic time window in PSA (2) Sufficient operator's action time can reduce human error probability and core damage frequency in PSA.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.698-708
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• 2018

This article introduces a methodology of designing a wavelet operator suitable for multiscale modeling. The operator matrix transforms states of a multivariable system onto projection space. In addition, it imposes a specific structure on the system matrix in a multiscale environment. To be specific, the article deals with a diagonalizing transform that is useful for decoupled control of a system. It establishes that there exists a definite relationship between the model in the measurement space and that in the projection space. Methodology for deriving the multirate perfect reconstruction filter bank, associated with the wavelet operator, is presented. The efficacy of the proposed technique is demonstrated by modeling the point kinetics nuclear reactor. The outcome of the multiscale modeling approach is compared with that in the single-scale approach to bring out the advantage of the proposed method.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.54 no.7
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• pp.2453-2466
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• 2022

Nuclear power plant operators in the main control room are exposed to stressful conditions in emergency situations as immediate and appropriate mitigations are required. While emergency operating procedures (EOPs) provide operators with the appropriate tasks and diagnostic guidelines, EOPs have static properties that make it difficult to reflect the dynamic changes of the plant. Due to this static nature, operator workloads increase because unrelated information must be screened out and numerous displays must be checked to obtain the plant status. Generally, excessive workloads should be reduced because they can lead to human errors that may adversely affect nuclear power plant safety. This paper presents a framework for an operator support system that can substitute the initial responses of the EOPs, or in other words the immediate actions and diagnostic procedures, in the early stages of an emergency. The system assists operators in emergency operations as follows: performing the monitoring tasks in parallel, identifying current risk and latent risk causality, diagnosing the accident, and displaying all information intuitively with a master logic diagram. The risk causalities are analyzed with a functional modeling methodology called multilevel flow modeling. This system is expected to reduce workloads and the time for performing initial emergency response procedures.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.8
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• pp.929-938
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• 2012

The Computerized Procedure System (CPS) is one of the primary operating support systems in the digital Main Control Room. The CPS displays procedure on the computer screen in the form of a flow chart, and displays plant operating information along with procedure instructions. It also supports operator decision making by providing a system decision. A procedure flow should be correct and reliable, as an error would lead to operator misjudgment and inadequate control. In this paper we present a modeling for the CPS that enables formal verification based on Petri nets. The proposed State Token Petri Nets (STPN) also support modeling of a procedure flow that has various interruptions by the operator, according to the plant condition. STPN modeling is compared with Coloured Petri net when they are applied to Emergency Operating Computerized Procedure. A converting program for Computerized Procedure (CP) to STPN has been also developed. The formal verification and validation methods of CP with STPN increase the safety of a nuclear power plant and provide digital quality assurance means that are needed when the role and function of the CPS is increasing.

• Korean Journal of Mathematics
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.645-655
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• 2019

In this article, we show that the nuclear operator defined on Banach space has an extending and lifting operator. Also we give new proofs of the well known facts which were given $Pelcz{\acute{y}}nski$ theorem for complemented subspaces of ${\ell}_1$ and Lewis and Stegall's theorem for complemented subspaces of $L_1({\mu})$.