Development of Simulation-Based Evaluation System for Iterative Design of Human-Machine Interface in a Nuclear Power Plant - Application for Reducing Workload

A design of human machine interface (HMI) has been developed to ensure the safety and availability of marine nuclear power plant (NPP) in China. The staffing arrangement and HMIs are different from current nuclear power plants. One control room is used to monitor and control the reactor, the secondary loop, and the electric system. Considering the digital control room style, the elements of the HMIs in the control room are the large display panels and control consoles. Considering the digital control room style, the elements of the HMIs in the control room are the large display panels and control consoles. Information accuracy and control efficacy are thought as the ultimate goal. It has extremely high safety by hardware control on the control panel. Display device refers to the part designs of NPP one. Eventually it can provide centrally the working condition of the device and system, the operating parameters of key equipment, accident. Dynamic and static displays are combined to reflect real-time condition of the system conveniently, accurately and reliably. The necessary safety operations and displays are set on the safety console of each reactor independently. The large display panels are designed as an overview of the whole marine plant, which consist of large screen displays, mimic displays and alarm tiles. This paper points out that what the main issues is to be dealt with in the computerized HMI design process. A task-oriented HMI design principle is used to the interfaces of marine reactors starting up.

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A Study About Human Workload Forecasting Method of Nuclear Power Plant

18th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering: Volume 1 ◽

10.1115/icone18-29600 ◽

2010 ◽

Author(s):

Guojin Jiang ◽

Pengfei Gu ◽

Yongbin Sun

Keyword(s):

Performance Evaluation ◽

Power Plant ◽

Nuclear Power Plant ◽

Team Performance ◽

Nuclear Power ◽

Individual Performance ◽

Human Machine Interface ◽

Team Work ◽

Operator Performance ◽

Machine Interface

In the past, the human machine interface is not computerized and the analysis tools are lack. So that most of previous researches of operator performance focused on the performance of individual operator rather than on the team performance. The relationships between team performance and individual performance are very close, but the team performance is not exactly equal to the sum of individual performance. The complexity of team performance evaluation is much higher than that of individual performance evaluation. Along with the development of new technology, especially the computerized technology, such as eye tracking tool and video recorder, team performance could be observed and measured. In NPP (Nuclear Power Plant), the operator performance of team work is closed to the safety of the whole plant. So the operators needed to be paid high attention to team performance. In order to improve the operator performance (including individual and team performance) base on the computerized human machine interface, this study bends to develop a real-time warning model for assessing team performance through the mental workload and human reliability evaluation. According to the analysis result, it could be as reference to modify the design about human machine interface in order to increase system safety and team performance of NPP.

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A Study on Human Reliability About Human Machine Interface in Accident Situation of Nuclear Power Plant

18th International Conference on Nuclear Engineering: Volume 1 ◽

10.1115/icone18-29596 ◽

2010 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Pengfei Gu ◽

Zhifang Wang ◽

Jianbo Zhang

Keyword(s):

Power Plant ◽

Nuclear Power Plant ◽

Nuclear Power ◽

Human Performance ◽

Human Machine Interface ◽

Team Work ◽

Control Room ◽

Human Reliability ◽

Human Reliability Analysis ◽

Machine Interface

Recently Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) is becoming more important to the safety of nuclear power plant (NPP). As the reliability of the NPP equipments have been increased more higher, HRA should be developed in order to guarantee the better safety of NPP. By the collection of human performance about operators in main control room of NPP, especially in accident situation, it is very important to enhance the human reliability. This paper chooses Loss of Coolant Accident (LOCA) and Steam Generator Tube Rupture (SGTR) as the initiating events, and base on this, some loss of other equipment or system have been added. Then the process that the operators deal with the accidents has been recorded in the accident situation in order to get reasonable human performance data. After we analyzed all of these video by some tools such as eye tracking tool, some items have been found which are very important to the human reliability such as training level, operation task, human-machine interface, surrounding, team work, etc. According to the analysis of the human performance result, we have evaluated the computerized human machine interface. As a result, it also could be benefit to improve the design of NPP, specially the design of main control room.

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