skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Improving human reliability through better nuclear power plant system design. Final report

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/766047· OSTI ID:766047

Increasing task complexity is claimed to be responsible for causing human operating errors, while a significant number of system failures are due to operating errors. An experimental study reported here was conducted to isolate varying task complexity as an important factor affecting human performance quality. Earlier work concerning problems of nuclear power plants has shown that human capability declined when dealing with increasing system complexity. The goal of this study was to investigate further the relationship between human operator performance quality and the complexity of tasks served to human operators. This was done by using a simple, interactive, dynamic and generalizable computer model to simulate the behavior of a human-operated dynamic fluid system. Twenty-two human subjects participated.

Research Organization:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., USA (US)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Research (ER) (US)
DOE Contract Number:
FG02-92ER75787
OSTI ID:
766047
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: 23 Feb 1998
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English