Abstract
We present an open database of nuclear events focused on worldwide safety significance with potentials for precursors. Explaining our events collection method and classification approach, each of the 1250 events in the database has been subjugated to coherent breakdown of features such as significance, origin, operating conditions, failure chains, contributing factors, severity of failures, and others. The events have been analyzed by experts and researchers in nuclear technology and safety, and are accessible using a custom-made user interface, making the database the largest open, comprehensive, curated, and user-friendly database in the world. We find that the majority of events (52%) have originated outside the nuclear island compared to within (48%). The most commonly affected components are related to the emergency power and emergency core cooling systems (ECCS). Design residuals are the major contributor to systems’ unreliability, with an occurrence frequency of more than 20%. Finally, the importance of vigilance by the plant staff and regulators is highlighted, as the contribution of human/organizational factors is found to be similar to that of technical factors.
Highlights
Despite their dreadfulness, accidents in heavy industries can provide a unique opportunity for learning from mistakes and realizing existing weaknesses
We present an open database of nuclear events focused on worldwide safety significance with potentials for precursors
Park et al [11] used a similar approach in studying human error probabilities (HEP) using a subset of 193 reports pub lished by the Nuclear Event Evaluation Database (NEED), managed by the Korean Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS)
Summary
Accidents in heavy industries can provide a unique opportunity for learning from mistakes and realizing existing weaknesses. Nuclear operational experience is well documented, maintained in different unsynchronized user-specific efforts and databases that suffer remarkable limitations on openness, Reliability Engineering and System Safety 213 (2021) 107781 completeness, scope, homogeneity, practical annotations, searchability, and technical risk metrics. Recognizing these limitations, our group at the ETH Zurich have been developing an open nuclear events database focused on worldwide safety significant events that have the potential to be precursors of accidents [21,22]. An appendix presents the full sets of considered initiating events and systems used for the classification in the ETHZ Curated Nuclear Events database
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
