Abstract
As a result of the Three Mile Island-Unit 2 (TMI) accident and subsequent investigations, all U.S. nuclear utilities are being required to review the control rooms in their nuclear generating plants for human factors design adequacy. Before TMI, human factors considerations were not an integral part of the design process in the nuclear industry. The utilities were not well equipped to handle the requirement for control room design reviews (CRDR), so, in an attempt to provide useable guidance for CRDR's, the NRC issued several documents that were based on military design standards and commonly-used equipment design guides. A fundamental problem with the guidance issued by the NRC and others is that much of the design guidance is not directly applicable to a review and backfit process such as the CRDR.
This paper presents a description of the ongoing process of applying human factors design criteria from the military and aerospace arena to the review and backfit activities in the nuclear utility industry. This process has, and is, taking place in a broad-based utility working group to which the author acts as a consultant. The work includes a large educational segment in which techniques, such as task analysis, are made explicity applicable to the CRDR. So far, this activity has resulted in four guidelines that have been reviewed by the nuclear utilities.
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