Important Human Actions for Advanced Reactors: Implications for Risk Analysis

Advances in technology have led to development of new reactor designs and significant changes in human-system interfaces used by operators to monitor and control commercial nuclear power plants (NPPs). These advances have led the way to novel concepts of operations (ConOps) that are very different from those used in operations for traditional NPPs, i.e., large light water reactors. Accordingly, in collaboration with Idaho National Laboratory (INL), the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) started multiple projects to support the NRC’s guidance for human factors engineering (HFE) reviews of advanced reactor applications. As a part of these efforts, INL staff members are currently working on a project to risk-inform the scope of HFE reviews when there are changes to important human actions (IHAs). Specifically, the purpose of the project is to capture specific regulatory aspects of these novel ConOps proposals and risk-inform HFE reviews related to IHAs.