Abstract
The reactor operator is an inseparable part of reactor safety and his actions influence the course of the reactor transients. Understanding the operator’s effect on reactor control thus contributes to the knowledge of the safe operation of nuclear reactors. Complementary to studies performed on simulators, or utilizing standard reactor or plant operational data, the dedicated experiments at research reactors can help to improve the insight into human aspects of reactor control. The potential of research reactors to study the human operator aspects of reactor control is broad; the related activities thus may also help to increase the utilization of research reactor facilities. The paper summarizes the considerations that had to be assessed during the implementation of such experiments at the VR-1 research reactor from the viewpoint of the reactor facility. Further, it recapitulates the activities that have been performed in this field at the VR-1 reactor in the collaboration of the Czech Technical University in Prague with the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom in the previous years.
Highlights
Analyses of nuclear reactor transients are usually performed solely by codes describing the time dependent behaviour of a nuclear reactor as a physical system
The potential fields of applications include, among others, improvements in operator training programs, including, quantitative evaluation of an individual operator’s progress, understanding the operator-reactor system dynamic response, defining the manual controllability boundaries, and the evaluation of the human-machine interface, including effects of its modifications on the system controllability [1]. Historically they have not been commonly used for this purpose, zero power reactors seem to be the proper tool for the related research
This paper summarizes the related considerations, tools and approaches, and the gained experience from a reactor facility perspective
Summary
Analyses of nuclear reactor transients are usually performed solely by codes describing the time dependent behaviour of a nuclear reactor as a physical system. In reality the course of a reactor transient is ruled by reactor physics, and by a response of a reactor operator. The potential fields of applications include, among others, improvements in operator training programs, including, quantitative evaluation of an individual operator’s progress, understanding the operator-reactor system dynamic response, defining the manual controllability boundaries, and the evaluation of the human-machine interface, including effects of its modifications on the system controllability [1]. Historically they have not been commonly used for this purpose, zero power reactors seem to be the proper tool for the related research. This paper summarizes the related considerations, tools and approaches, and the gained experience from a reactor facility perspective
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