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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Expert systems and nuclear safety

Conference · · Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States)
OSTI ID:6779740

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the Electric Power Research Institute have initiated a broad-based exploration of means to evaluate the potential applications of expert systems in the nuclear industry. This exploratory effort will assess the use of expert systems to augment the diagnostic and decision-making capabilities of personnel with the goal of enhancing productivity, reliability, and performance. The initial research effort is the development and documentation of guidelines for verifying and validating (V and V) expert systems. An initial application of expert systems in the nuclear industry is to aid operations and maintenance personnel in decision-making tasks. The scope of the decision aiding covers all types of cognitive behavior consisting of skill, rule, and knowledge-based behavior. For example, procedure trackers were designed and tested to support rule-based behavior. Further, these systems automate many of the tedious, error-prone human monitoring tasks, thereby reducing the potential for human error. The paper version of the procedure contains the knowledge base and the rules and thus serves as the basis of the design verification of the procedure tracker. Person-in-the-loop tests serve as the basis for the validation of a procedure tracker. When conducting validation tests, it is important to ascertain that the human retains the locus of control in the use of the expert system.

OSTI ID:
6779740
Report Number(s):
CONF-901101--
Journal Information:
Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States), Journal Name: Transactions of the American Nuclear Society; (United States) Vol. 62; ISSN 0003-018X; ISSN TANSAO
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English