Including severe accidents in the design basis of nuclear power plants: An organizational factors perspective after the Fukushima accident

Alvarenga, Marco Antonio Bayout; Melo, Prı́amo A.

doi:10.1016/j.anucene.2015.01.016

Cited by 15 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…The first perspective (P.I.1) can be framed by an early interpretation of the "defense-in-depth" philosophy (AEC, 1957), which takes a structuralist view of accident progression where multiple physical barriers are seen as the primary defenses in preventing, blocking and containing damage or mitigating consequences of an accident or incident (Chierici, Fiorini, La Rovere, & Vestrucci, 2016;Saleh, Marais, & Favaró, 2014). The defense-in-depth philosophy was updated after the Three Mile Island (TMI) accident in 1975, identifying organizational factors as root cause contributors (Alvarenga & Frutuoso-e-Melo, 2015;IAEA, 2014a;Omoto, 2015), where it was stated that "the principal deficiencies in commercial reactor safety today are not hardware problems, they are management problems" (Rogovin, 1980). As traditional defense-in-depth definitions have been evolving, engineering-based approaches for identifying the root causes of technological system failures have also needed to change.…”

Section: Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Discourse on the Incorporation of Organizational Factors into Probabilistic Risk Assessment: Key Questions and Categorical Review

Pence

Mohaghegh

2020

Risk Analysis

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This paper presents a discourse on the incorporation of organizational factors into Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA)/Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA), a topic of debate since the 1980s that has spurred discussions among industry, regulatory agencies, and the research community. The main contributions of this paper include (1) identifying the four key open questions associated with this topic; (2) framing ongoing debates by considering differing perspectives around each question; (3) offering a categorical review of existing studies on this topic to justify the selection of each question and to analyze the challenges related to each perspective; and (4) highlighting the directions of research required to reach a final resolution for each question. The four key questions are: (I) how significant is the contribution of organizational factors to accidents and incidents? (II) how critical, with respect to improving risk assessment, is the explicit incorporation of organizational factors into PRA? (III) what theoretical bases are needed for explicit This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. incorporation of organizational factors into PRA? and (IV) what methodological bases are needed for the explicit incorporation of organizational factors into PRA? Questions I and II mainly analyze PRA literature from the nuclear domain. For Questions III and IV, a broader review and categorization is conducted of those existing cross-disciplinary studies which have evaluated the effects of organizational factors on safety (not solely PRA-based) to shed more light on future research needs.

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Section: Groupsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Discourse on the Incorporation of Organizational Factors into Probabilistic Risk Assessment: Key Questions and Categorical Review

Pence

Mohaghegh

2020

Risk Analysis

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“…The globalization and the simplicity to access information from one side have improved technologies and quality of life but from the other side have created a higher facility to gather information to offend or create terror. The cases of the dispersion of toxic gas in the past and in the recent history [1][2][3][4][5], the DAESH progression in the Arabic Countries [6][7][8][9][10], the Ebola diffusion through the aerial transportation [11][12][13][14][15][16][17], and the radiological dispersion due to failures in fission or fusion devices [18][19][20][21][22][23][24] are all examples on how the new merge between the well-known risks and the new "dangerous ideas" has exponentially increased the uncertainties of the human health all around the world. The University of Rome Tor Vergata, counting on the synergic work between the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, is facing these new problems with innovative working approaches voted to use the expertise developed in classic scientific disciplines in an unconventional way.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical Simulations as Tool to Predict Chemical and Radiological Hazardous Diffusion in Case of Nonconventional Events

Ciparisse

Malizia

Poggi

et al. 2016

Modelling and Simulation in Engineering

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CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulations are widely used nowadays to predict the behaviour of fluids in pure research and in industrial applications. This approach makes it possible to get quantitatively meaningful results, often in good agreement with the experimental ones. The aim of this paper is to show how CFD calculations can help to understand the time evolution of two possible CBRNe (Chemical-Biological-Radiological-Nuclear-explosive) events: (1) hazardous dust mobilization due to the interaction between a jet of air and a metallic powder in case of a LOVA (Loss Of Vacuum Accidents) that is one of the possible accidents that can occur in experimental nuclear fusion plants; (2) toxic gas release in atmosphere. The scenario analysed in the paper has consequences similar to those expected in case of a release of dangerous substances (chemical or radioactive) in enclosed or open environment during nonconventional events (like accidents or man-made or natural disasters).

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“…While it is recognized that failures are inevitable, contemporary approaches to 'beyond-design-basis' accidents in nuclear safety [18] must address ongoing challenges. In the aftermath of extensive damage, actors must adopt innovative, improvised solutions to return to a safe situation.…”

Section: From Nuclear Accident To Extreme Situationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many models [15,18,32,65,69,74,75] describe the response of organizations to disruption at all orders of magnitude. Most rely on a call for strategic and operational, or even financial resources.…”

Section: Human and Organizational Factors Of Entry Into Resilience Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident: Entering into Resilience Faced with an Extreme Situation

Guarnieri¹

2017

Resilience: A New Paradigm of Nuclear Safety

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A transdisciplinary concept, resilience has emerged from monodisciplinary approaches and finds its foundations in various domains such as materials science, ecology, psychology, sociology, ethology, medicine, etc. Although the concept has been a work in progress in the scientific community for several decades, it was only adopted by the safety studies community in the 2000s. The Fukushima Daiichi accident has accelerated its popularity and led to an abundance of theoretical and methodological references, ideas and concepts, processes and approaches that are more-or-less operational.

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Including severe accidents in the design basis of nuclear power plants: An organizational factors perspective after the Fukushima accident

Cited by 15 publications

References 2 publications

A Discourse on the Incorporation of Organizational Factors into Probabilistic Risk Assessment: Key Questions and Categorical Review

A Discourse on the Incorporation of Organizational Factors into Probabilistic Risk Assessment: Key Questions and Categorical Review

Numerical Simulations as Tool to Predict Chemical and Radiological Hazardous Diffusion in Case of Nonconventional Events

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident: Entering into Resilience Faced with an Extreme Situation

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