Iconic Displays, Rankine Cycles and Human Factors for Control Rooms of Nuclear Power Plants

Abstract

This report discusses a concept for a nuclear power plant (NPP) process iconic display to model the plant in the control room of a pressurized-water reactor (PWR). The iconic display is based on the Rankine Cycle, a thermodynamic model for the power cycle. The display image contains coded information on the generation, transport, and removal of heat in the power plant process. It is useful in evaluating both steady-state and transient operation in the power plant. Elements within the display image become distorted during many of the significant design-basis accidents thus facilitating operator recognition of these events. The iconic display serves as an overview monitor of the plant process. It structures and codes temperature and pressure sensor data into a synthesis of the heat transfer process from the heat source, the reactor core, to the heat sink, the environment. With this coded information in the form of patterns that can be easily interpreted by the operator, the operator's data search time, dwell time, and data processing workload are minimized, thus enhancing the probability that the operator will make correct decisions and minimizing the probability of errors.