MANAGING UNEXPECTED FAILURES OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS BY INCORPORATING ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS INTO PROBABILISTIC RISK ASSESSMENT

Andrea Roy, Pegah Farshadmanesh, Tatsuya Sakurahara, Ernie Kee, Zahra Mohaghegh

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

Organizational factors have been identified as key contributors to accidents and incidents in nuclear power plants (NPPs). The Data-Theoretic (DT) methodology, previously developed by some of the authors of this paper, helps quantify the impacts of organizational factors on plant risk scenarios in Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA). In the DT methodology, "data analytics" are guided by "theory," enhancing the completeness of "causality" derived from data and helping to avoid potentially misleading results from solely data-driven approaches. This paper advances the quantification of uncertainties (e.g., uncertainty associated with the PRA analyst's assessment of organizational factors) in the DT methodology. The DT methodology includes two submodules: (I) DT-BASE, which focuses on the development of detailed causal relationships based on a theory-building process and creates a baseline quantification utilizing analyst interpretation of information extracted from theoretical references and standards; (II) DT-SITE, which conducts data analytics (text mining) to update (add or delete links and nodes) the causal model structure developed in DT-BASE, quantify causal relationships using historical event databases, and update the results of baseline quantification in DT-BASE using Bayesian analysis. This paper adds uncertainty analysis to the DT-BASE submodule. The updated DT approach is implemented in a case study targeting NPP organizational "training quality" that influences the "training" performance shaping factor (PSF) in Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) associated with the plant PRA.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages701-709
Number of pages9
DOIs
StatePublished - 2021
Event2021 International Topical Meeting on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Analysis, PSA 2021 - Virtual, Online
Duration: Nov 7 2021Nov 12 2021

Conference

Conference2021 International Topical Meeting on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Analysis, PSA 2021
CityVirtual, Online
Period11/7/2111/12/21

Keywords

  • Data Analytics
  • Human Reliability Analysis (HRA)
  • Organizational Factors
  • Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA)

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty
  • Nuclear Energy and Engineering
  • Statistics and Probability
  • Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'MANAGING UNEXPECTED FAILURES OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS BY INCORPORATING ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS INTO PROBABILISTIC RISK ASSESSMENT'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this