Nuclear Power Plant Maintenance and Commissioning Activities from the Perspective of HRA: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The recent Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) method developed by U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Integrated Human Event Analysis System (IDHEAS), provides a well-grounded model to analyze human errors as well as a promising interface for generalizing and integrating human error data from various sources. Nevertheless, the task context and human performance in different domains, even in different applications within one domain, manifest quite different features which make it elusive to draw an inter-sector or inter-application comparison. In light of this contradiction, one question arises: Can HRA in distinct applications be cross-referenced to one another? Motivated by this, an interview study was conducted as a preliminary attempt to figure out the similarities and differences between two typical activities in the nuclear domain, i.e., maintenance and commissioning, with respect to two vital HRA elements, i.e., error modes and performance shaping factors (PSFs). A total of 21 engineers in a nuclear power plant were recruited to participate in the interview about salient error modes and PSFs in maintenance activities as well as a comparison with commissioning activities. Results show that the two activities share analogous error modes and PSFs on the whole, but vary in the patterns and distributions of each individual PSFs. Hence, results of the present study indicate that human errors in these two comparable activities could be characterized by a unified taxonomy, affording positive evidence for the thrown question. However, the discrepancy in the PSF patterns should never be neglected, which could lead to the divergency of nominal PSF levels and nominal human error probabilities.

Keywords: Human Reliability Analysis, Nuclear Power Plant, Maintenance, Commissioning

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1004878