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Division Spotlight
Nuclear Installations Safety
Devoted specifically to the safety of nuclear installations and the health and safety of the public, this division seeks a better understanding of the role of safety in the design, construction and operation of nuclear installation facilities. The division also promotes engineering and scientific technology advancement associated with the safety of such facilities.
Meeting Spotlight
Utility Working Conference and Vendor Technology Expo (UWC 2024)
August 4–7, 2024
Marco Island, FL|JW Marriott Marco Island
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Nuclear Science and Engineering
August 2024
Nuclear Technology
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Latest News
Vogtle-3 shuts down for valve issue
One of the new Vogtle units in Georgia was shut down unexpectedly on Monday last week for a valve issue that has since been investigated and repaired. According to multiple local news outlets, Georgia Power reported on July 17 that Unit 3 was back in service.
Southern Company spokesperson Jacob Hawkins confirmed that Vogtle-3 went off line at 9:25 p.m. local time on July 8 “due to lowering water levels in the steam generators caused by a valve issue on one of the three main feedwater pumps.”
Per Øivind Braarud, Høkan Svengren (OECD), Paul Hunton (Duke Energy), Jeffrey Joe (INL), Lew Hanes (Independent Consultant)
Proceedings | Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technolgies (NPIC&HMIT 2019) | Orlando, FL, February 9-14, 2019 | Pages 903-917
The guidance for human factors validation of non-safety upgrades is limited. The NUREG-0711 review guide provides comprehensive guidance suitable for new builds or large-scale safety upgrades. Consequently, modernization projects must tackle several challenging questions regarding independence of evaluators, sufficiency and realism of test scenarios, performance measures and the identification of Human Engineering Discrepancies (HEDs). This paper presents a graded approach to human factors integrated system validation applied in turbine control system upgrade and control room modernization at four nuclear units at three Duke Energy sites. Targeted test scenarios with expert assessment, expert observations, simple rating scales and crew scenario interviews provided an approach that adequately could identify human performance aspects of the upgrade. Consistent results between performance measures and expert observations supported confidence in the approach. The upgrade project and operations management found the HEDs identified relevant and dispositioned the identified HEDs satisfactorily suggesting that the approach provided meaningful and useful results. The approach presented can be adapted and applied to other upgrade projects. The technical aspects of Duke’s Fleet Digital Upgrade Program and Control Room Modernization, and the fleet-level HFE Program developed by the Idaho National Laboratory, are the subject of separate, related papers.