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Title: An overview of the evolution of human reliability analysis in the context of probabilistic risk assessment.

Abstract

Since the Reactor Safety Study in the early 1970's, human reliability analysis (HRA) has been evolving towards a better ability to account for the factors and conditions that can lead humans to take unsafe actions and thereby provide better estimates of the likelihood of human error for probabilistic risk assessments (PRAs). The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of recent reviews of operational events and advances in the behavioral sciences that have impacted the evolution of HRA methods and contributed to improvements. The paper discusses the importance of human errors in complex human-technical systems, examines why humans contribute to accidents and unsafe conditions, and discusses how lessons learned over the years have changed the perspective and approach for modeling human behavior in PRAs of complicated domains such as nuclear power plants. It is argued that it has become increasingly more important to understand and model the more cognitive aspects of human performance and to address the broader range of factors that have been shown to influence human performance in complex domains. The paper concludes by addressing the current ability of HRA to adequately predict human failure events and their likelihood.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [3]; ;  [4];  [2]
  1. Buttonwood Consulting Inc., Oakton, VA
  2. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC
  3. Science Applications International Corporation, Eugene, OR
  4. John Wreathall and Co., Dublin, OH
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Albuquerque, NM, and Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
950689
Report Number(s):
SAND2008-5085
TRN: US0902046
DOE Contract Number:  
AC04-94AL85000
Resource Type:
Technical Report
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS; ACCIDENTS; NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS; PERFORMANCE; REACTOR SAFETY; RELIABILITY; RISK ASSESSMENT; SIMULATION; Probabilistic risk assessment.; Nuclear power plants-Human factors-Reliability.; Human behavior.; Risk assessment-Human factors.; Reliability-Analysis.

Citation Formats

Bley, Dennis C, Lois, Erasmia, Kolaczkowski, Alan M, Forester, John Alan, Wreathall, John, and Cooper, Susan E. An overview of the evolution of human reliability analysis in the context of probabilistic risk assessment.. United States: N. p., 2009. Web. doi:10.2172/950689.
Bley, Dennis C, Lois, Erasmia, Kolaczkowski, Alan M, Forester, John Alan, Wreathall, John, & Cooper, Susan E. An overview of the evolution of human reliability analysis in the context of probabilistic risk assessment.. United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/950689
Bley, Dennis C, Lois, Erasmia, Kolaczkowski, Alan M, Forester, John Alan, Wreathall, John, and Cooper, Susan E. 2009. "An overview of the evolution of human reliability analysis in the context of probabilistic risk assessment.". United States. https://doi.org/10.2172/950689. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/950689.
@article{osti_950689,
title = {An overview of the evolution of human reliability analysis in the context of probabilistic risk assessment.},
author = {Bley, Dennis C and Lois, Erasmia and Kolaczkowski, Alan M and Forester, John Alan and Wreathall, John and Cooper, Susan E},
abstractNote = {Since the Reactor Safety Study in the early 1970's, human reliability analysis (HRA) has been evolving towards a better ability to account for the factors and conditions that can lead humans to take unsafe actions and thereby provide better estimates of the likelihood of human error for probabilistic risk assessments (PRAs). The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of recent reviews of operational events and advances in the behavioral sciences that have impacted the evolution of HRA methods and contributed to improvements. The paper discusses the importance of human errors in complex human-technical systems, examines why humans contribute to accidents and unsafe conditions, and discusses how lessons learned over the years have changed the perspective and approach for modeling human behavior in PRAs of complicated domains such as nuclear power plants. It is argued that it has become increasingly more important to understand and model the more cognitive aspects of human performance and to address the broader range of factors that have been shown to influence human performance in complex domains. The paper concludes by addressing the current ability of HRA to adequately predict human failure events and their likelihood.},
doi = {10.2172/950689},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/950689}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2009},
month = {Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 2009}
}