EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF MULTI-STAGE VALIDATION AS AN APPROACH TO ENHANCING CONFIDENCE IN THE HUMAN FACTORS VALIDATION OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANT CONTROL DESIGNS AND MODIFICATIONS

摘要

The human factors engineering (HFE) validation of a nuclear power plant control roomdesign, or of a design modification (e.g., for modernization), is a complex undertaking that facesmany technical and logistical challenges. These challenges include conducting validations thataddress the diversity of operating conditions, staffing configurations, and failure scenarios that theplant will experience, or must be designed to tolerate. Such challenges must be addressed withinthe practical constraints of available resources (e.g., test personnel, participants, testbeds, andtime). How these challenges are addressed can impact the confidence that vendors, nuclear plantoperating companies, and regulatory authorities have in validation results and conclusions. Since2013, the Nuclear Energy Agency’s Working Group on Human and Organizational Factors hasbeen working with industry experts in control room validation to identify and advance thedevelopment of methods for enhancing confidence in control room validations. The most recentproduct of these efforts is a working group report that describes a general approach and rationalefor validating systems through a series of successive, coordinated validation activities. Theworking group refers to this approach as, multi-stage validation (MSV). This paper summarizesthe central concepts and issues discussed in the working group report, including the definingcharacteristics of MSV and those that characterize an effective MSV implementation. Alsoaddressed in this paper are methods and issues important to MSV implementation and its furtherdevelopment as an approach to the HFE validation of nuclear power plant control room designsand modifications.