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Title: A decision support system prototype including human factors based on the TOGA meta-theory approach

Abstract

The human contribution to the risk of operation of complex technological systems is often not negligible and sometimes tends to become significant, as shown by many reports on incidents and accidents occurred in the past inside Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). An error of a human operator of a NPP can derive by both omission and commission. For instance, complex commission errors can also lead to significant catastrophic technological accidents, as for the case of the Three Mile Island accident. Typically, the problem is analyzed by focusing on the single event chain that has provoked the incident or accident. What is needed is a general framework able to include as many parameters as possible, i.e. both technological and human factors. Such a general model could allow to envisage an omission or commission error before it can happen or, alternatively, suggest preferred actions to do in order to take countermeasures to neutralize the effect of the error before it becomes critical. In this paper, a preliminary Decision Support System (DSS) based on the so-called (-) TOGA meta-theory approach is presented. The application of such a theory to the management of nuclear power plants has been presented in the previous ICAPP 2011. Here,more » a human factor simulator prototype is proposed in order to include the effect of human errors in the decision path. The DSS has been developed using a TRIGA research reactor as reference plant, and implemented using the LabVIEW programming environment and the Finite State Machine (FSM) model The proposed DSS shows how to apply the Universal Reasoning Paradigm (URP) and the Universal Management Paradigm (UMP) to a real plant context. The DSS receives inputs from instrumentation data and gives as output a suggested decision. It is obtained as the result of an internal elaborating process based on a performance function. The latter, describes the degree of satisfaction and efficiency, which are dependent on the level of responsibility related to each professional role. As an application, we present the simulation of the discussed error, e.g. the unchecked extraction of the control rods during a power variation maneuver and we show how the effect of human errors can affect the performance function, giving rise to different countermeasures which could call different operator figures into play, potentially not envisaged in the standard procedure. (authors)« less

Authors:
;  [1];  [2];  [1]
  1. UTFISST, ENEA Casaccia, via Anguillarese 301, Rome (Italy)
  2. ECONA, Centro Interuniv. Elaborazione Cognitiva Sistemi Naturali e Artificiali, via dei Marsi 47, Rome (Italy)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
American Nuclear Society, 555 North Kensington Avenue, La Grange Park, IL 60526 (United States)
OSTI Identifier:
22106053
Resource Type:
Conference
Resource Relation:
Conference: ICAPP '12: 2012 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants, Chicago, IL (United States), 24-28 Jun 2012; Other Information: Country of input: France; 20 refs.; Related Information: In: Proceedings of the 2012 International Congress on Advances in Nuclear Power Plants - ICAPP '12| 2799 p.
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS; ACCIDENTS; ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE; COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION; CONTROL ELEMENTS; HAZARDS; HUMAN FACTORS; NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS; PERFORMANCE; PROGRAMMING; REACTOR OPERATION; REACTOR SIMULATORS; THREE MILE ISLAND-1 REACTOR; TRIGA TYPE REACTORS

Citation Formats

Cappelli, M., Memmi, F., Gadomski, A. M., and Sepielli, M. A decision support system prototype including human factors based on the TOGA meta-theory approach. United States: N. p., 2012. Web.
Cappelli, M., Memmi, F., Gadomski, A. M., & Sepielli, M. A decision support system prototype including human factors based on the TOGA meta-theory approach. United States.
Cappelli, M., Memmi, F., Gadomski, A. M., and Sepielli, M. 2012. "A decision support system prototype including human factors based on the TOGA meta-theory approach". United States.
@article{osti_22106053,
title = {A decision support system prototype including human factors based on the TOGA meta-theory approach},
author = {Cappelli, M. and Memmi, F. and Gadomski, A. M. and Sepielli, M.},
abstractNote = {The human contribution to the risk of operation of complex technological systems is often not negligible and sometimes tends to become significant, as shown by many reports on incidents and accidents occurred in the past inside Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs). An error of a human operator of a NPP can derive by both omission and commission. For instance, complex commission errors can also lead to significant catastrophic technological accidents, as for the case of the Three Mile Island accident. Typically, the problem is analyzed by focusing on the single event chain that has provoked the incident or accident. What is needed is a general framework able to include as many parameters as possible, i.e. both technological and human factors. Such a general model could allow to envisage an omission or commission error before it can happen or, alternatively, suggest preferred actions to do in order to take countermeasures to neutralize the effect of the error before it becomes critical. In this paper, a preliminary Decision Support System (DSS) based on the so-called (-) TOGA meta-theory approach is presented. The application of such a theory to the management of nuclear power plants has been presented in the previous ICAPP 2011. Here, a human factor simulator prototype is proposed in order to include the effect of human errors in the decision path. The DSS has been developed using a TRIGA research reactor as reference plant, and implemented using the LabVIEW programming environment and the Finite State Machine (FSM) model The proposed DSS shows how to apply the Universal Reasoning Paradigm (URP) and the Universal Management Paradigm (UMP) to a real plant context. The DSS receives inputs from instrumentation data and gives as output a suggested decision. It is obtained as the result of an internal elaborating process based on a performance function. The latter, describes the degree of satisfaction and efficiency, which are dependent on the level of responsibility related to each professional role. As an application, we present the simulation of the discussed error, e.g. the unchecked extraction of the control rods during a power variation maneuver and we show how the effect of human errors can affect the performance function, giving rise to different countermeasures which could call different operator figures into play, potentially not envisaged in the standard procedure. (authors)},
doi = {},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/22106053}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2012},
month = {Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 2012}
}

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