Safety, Reliability, Human Factors, and Human Error in Nuclear Power Plants

B.S. Dhillon

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351623995
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Industrial Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Each year billions of dollars are being spent in the area of nuclear power generation to design, construct, manufacture, operate, and maintain various types of systems around the globe. Many times these systems fail due to safety, reliability, human factors, and human error related problems. The main objective of this book is to combine nuclear power plant safety, reliability, human factors, and human error into a single volume for those individuals that work closely during the nuclear power plant design phase, as well as other phases, thus eliminating the need to consult many different and diverse sources in obtaining the desired information.

1

Introduction

1.1Background

The history of nuclear power plants goes back to 1954, when the first five megawatt (MW) nuclear plant for generating electricity for commercial use started to operate at Obnisk, Russia [1]. In 1956, four 50 MW reactors started to operate at Calder, United Kingdom, and in 1957, a 60 MW pressurized light water reactor (PWR) began operation at Shippingport, United States [1]. Nowadays, as per Reference 2, nuclear power plants generate about 16% of electricity globally, and there are over 440 commercial nuclear reactors operating in 30 different countries, with another 65 reactors under construction.

Needless to say, the systems used in nuclear power plants often fail due to safety, reliability, human factors, and human error-related problems. For example, in the United States during the period from 1990–1994, approximately 27% of commercial nuclear power plant outages were due to human error [3]. Since 1960, a large number of publications directly or indirectly related to safety, reliability, human factors, and human error in nuclear power generation have appeared. A list of over 340 such publications is provided in the Appendix.

1.2Safety, Reliability, Human Factors, and Human Error-Related Facts, Figures, and Examples

Some of the facts, figures, and examples directly or indirectly concerned with safety, reliability, human factors, and human error in nuclear power plants are as follows:

•A study of the commercial nuclear power plant outages in the United States during the years 1990–1994 reported that about 27% of the outages were due to human error [3].

•A study performed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) of licensee reports revealed that around 65% of the nuclear system failures were due to human error [4].

•As per References 5 and 6, approximately 70% of nuclear power plant operation-related errors appear to have a human factor-related origin.

•Approximately 54% of the incidents due to human errors in Japan during the years 1969–1986 led to automatic shutdowns of nuclear reactors, and around 15% of those resulted in power reduction [7].

•As per Reference 8, in nuclear power plants in 1985, the distribution of causes reflected a roughly 50/50 split between equipment-associated causes versus those attributable to human performance-related problems; in 1990, human performance-related problems increased to about 70% of all causes.

•A study of over 4400 maintenance-related history records for the period from 1992–1994 concerning a boiling water reactor (BWR) nuclear power plant reported that approximately 7.5% of all failure records could be clearly attributed to human errors directly or indirectly related to maintenance activities [9,10].

•As per Reference 11, in Japanese nuclear power plants during the period from 1965–1995, 199 human errors occurred, out of which 50 of them were concerned with maintenance-related tasks.

•During the period from February 1975 to April 1975, a study of 143 occurrences of operating U.S. commercial nuclear power plants revealed that approximately 20% of the occurrences were due to operator-related errors [12,13].

•As per References 14 and 15, in South Korean nuclear power plants during the years 1978–1992, 255 shutdowns occurred, out of which 77 of them were human induced.

•As per Reference 16, a study of major incident/accident reports of nuclear power plants in South Korea indicated that approximately 20% of the events occurred due to human error.

•In 1989 on Christmas Day in the state of Florida, two nuclear reactors were shut down due to maintenance-related errors and caused rolling blackouts [17].

•As per Reference 18, in the area of nuclear generation, in 1990, a study of 126 human error-related significant events revealed that approximately 42% of the problems were directly or indirectly linked to modification and maintenance.

•As per Reference 19, the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant accident that occurred in 1...