BEYOND INTEGRATED SYSTEM VALIDATION: USE OF A CONTROL ROOM TRAINING SIMULATOR FOR PROOF-OF-CONCEPT INTERFACE DEVELOPMENT

摘要

This paper provides background on a reconfigurable control room simulator for nuclear power plants. The main control rooms in current nuclear power plants feature analog technology that is growing obsolete. The need to upgrade control rooms serves the practical need of maintainability as well as the opportunity to implement newer digital technologies with added functionality. There currently exists no dedicated research simulator for use in human factors design and evaluation activities for nuclear power plants in the US. The new research simulator discussed in this paper provides a test bed in which operator performance on new control room concepts can be benchmarked against existing control rooms and in which new technologies can be validated for safety and usability prior to deployment.