A risk methodology to evaluate sensitvity of plant risk to human errors
This paper presents an evaluation of sensitivity of plant risk parameters, namely the core melt frequency and the accident sequence frequencies, to the human errors involved in various aspects of nuclear power plant operations. Results are provided using the Oconee-3 Probabilistic Risk Assessment model as an example application of the risk methodology described herein. Sensitivity analyses in probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) involve three areas: (1) a determination of the set of input parameters; in this case, various categories of human errors signifying aspects of plant operation, (2) the range over which the input parameters vary, and (3) an assessment of the sensitivity of the plant risk parameters to the input parameters which, in this case, consist of all postulated human errors, or categories of human errors. The methodology presents a categorization scheme where human errors are categorized in terms of types of activity, location, personnel involved, etc., to relate the significance of sensitivity of risk parameters to specific aspects of human performance in the nuclear plant. Ranges of variability for human errors have been developed considering the various known causes of uncertainty in human error probability estimates in PRAs. The sensitivity of the risk parameters are assessed using the event/fault tree methodology of the PRA. The results of the risk-based sensitivity evaluation using the Oconee-3 PRA as an example show the quantitative impact on the plant risk level due to variations in human error probabilities. The relative effects of various human error categories and human error sorts within the categories are also presented to identify and characterize significant human errors for effective risk management in nuclear power plant operational activities. 8 refs., 10 figs., 4 tabs.
- Research Organization:
- Brookhaven National Lab., Upton, NY (USA)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC02-76CH00016
- OSTI ID:
- 7021365
- Report Number(s):
- BNL-NUREG-41719; CONF-880633-9; ON: DE89001273
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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