American nuclear control room operators in Halden

For the first time ever, American operators have participated in experiments in HAMMLAB, the HAlden Man-Machine LABoratory. Five operating crews from three different nuclear power plants in the U.S. participated one full week each the summer of 2011. Earlier, Swedish and Finnish crews have participated in these kinds of studies.

Many member organizations of the Halden Project are interested in the results of these studies. It demonstrates that people from many countries can operate our simulators and provide useful results. It also shows that staff from nuclear power plants from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean takes great interest in what we are doing in Halden, and think they can learn from participating in studies in HAMMLAB. One clear motivation for them is learning about control rooms and Human-System Interfaces of the future, as we have a computerized control room while most plants have old, panel-based control rooms. This may help them in upgrade projects in their own plants.

Improving safety

Also, the type of difficult scenarios that we run, which is different from their normal training, was a good learning experience for them. The crews and plants were highly motivated, forward looking and interested in improving their operations and safety. 

The crews in action running the simulator in HAMMLAB.

How can American operators run our simulator?

One of the two nuclear simulators we are currently running in HAMMLAB simulates the Unit 3 at Ringhals power plant in Sweden. It is a Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) of Westinghouse type, one of the most common plant types around the world. The procedures are also standardized since they are based on guidelines issued by Westinghouse.

In order to make it work with American crews, we needed to adapt and translate the procedures, translate the interfaces and alarm texts to English and translate the metrics used from European (SI) to American format, for example pounds per square inch and gallons per minute. This extensive work was handled by the staff at IFE in Halden. Invaluable help was also provided by a team of U.S. experts from Duke Energy to validate the interfaces and the procedures.

What did we study?

Data was collected for five different research projects in the Halden Project. The main study investigated how the teams coped with multiple failures in accident scenarios. This knowledge is necessary for the discipline of Human Reliability Analysis to understand how crews work in emergencies and thus improve the accuracy of plant risk assessment in probabilistic analyses.

Another study tested how a shift supervisor who was not present in the control room could prepare for situations before entering the control room. How was this done? With an iPad, of course. A fully dynamic interface of the process was implemented on an iPad and this really had the "wow"-factor. One study on integrated system validation tested a newly developed questionnaire, while a study on operational culture and a teamwork study also utilized the opportunity to collect data.

In the photo: Chief Engineer Christer Nihlwing at IFE developed an iPad interface used in the simulator experiments. The dynamic interface allowed the shift supervisor to prepare for the situation in the control room before entering.

View to the simulator running in HAMMLAB from the observation gallery

Debrief after the run "to enter the operators' minds".

Multidisciplinary exercise

This kind of experiment involves a large number of people with different skills and background in the Man-Technology-Organization (MTO) sector. Activities include setting up the study, designing scenarios, preparing the software and the infrastructure for the study, collecting audio/video/questionnaire data and interviewing the crews. This requires psychologists, nuclear operations experts, engineers, software experts all working together.

How did it go?

The U.S. crews managed to operate the simulator well. They got training for two days emphasizing the computerized interface and any differences between our simulator and their plant, and then they managed to operate in very challenging scenarios! The simulator worked, with only a few minor problems occurring, something that must be considered respectable for the first experiment with a new simulator.

The crews displayed a very structured approach to accident response, which testifies how seriously human performance and safety training have been taken by the U.S. nuclear industry ever since the Three Miles Island accident in 1979.

The feedback from the crews was always affirmative. A letter received from a participating plant, accompanying a package with gifts for the Halden staff, states:

"We believe your research will pay huge benefits for the next generations of Nuclear Operators, and we'd like to encourage all of you to continue to pursue excellence in control room design."

The feedback was greatly appreciated by the Halden staff, and truly an inspiration for continued work in this field.

Tremendous interest

The interest for this project from member organisations was tremendous, and a number of observers came to watch the studies. Eight persons from American member organisations were present one full week each to follow the studies, also to see what it is like to work in a computerized control room compared to a traditional, panel-based one. Other visitors were here on shorter basis as well.

To conclude, the first HAMMLAB experiment with American crews was a success and a great learning experience for both the Halden staff and the American visitors.

2011-12-08 Andreas Bye