Procedures for Human Engineering Evaluation of Nuclear Power Plant Control Rooms

Abstract

Few human engineering standards or criteria for the design of nuclear power plant control rooms existed prior to the accident at Three Mile Island — Unit 2. For the most part control room design was dictated by electrical criteria, costs, and, most importantly, by precedent evolved from fossil fuel plant experience.

Since the TMI-2 accident, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has undertaken an ambitious program to develop control room design and operational guidelines to be used by utilities in evaluating the human engineering fitness of control rooms and in identifying human engineering problems requiring backfit.

The following paper reviews the method used to develop control room guidelines, the process suggested to the utilities for performing control room evaluations, and sources for and the content of guidelines.

As reported in the paper, evaluation guidelines evolved from a basic set of military standards and checklists through a series of on-site control room reviews. The methods used in these reviews involve surveys, checklists, and videotaped walk-throughs of emergency procedures.

The final product is a Guidebook containing: (a) procedures for scheduling, planning, administration, and staffing of human engineering reviews; (b) the evaluation procedures to be used, including guidelines, human engineering data, references, and methods; (c) a trade-off process for sorting out problems needing immediate vs. more remote attention; and (d) suggestions for backfits for the human engineering problems most widespread in the industry.