Conservatism of the Accident Sequence Evaluation Program HRA Procedure

This paper presents a limited assessment of the conservatism of the Accident Sequence Evaluation Program (ASEP) human reliability analysis (HRA) procedure described in NUREG/CR‐4772. The data for this study are derived from simulator examination reports from the NRC requalification examination cycle...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Risk analysis 1997-12, Vol.17 (6), p.781-787
Main Authors: Gore, Bryan F., Dukelow Jr, James S., Mitts, Timothy M., Nicholson, Wesley L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accident sequence evaluation program
ASEP
HRA
human reliability analysis
operator licensing examination
requalification examination
simulator examination
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper presents a limited assessment of the conservatism of the Accident Sequence Evaluation Program (ASEP) human reliability analysis (HRA) procedure described in NUREG/CR‐4772. The data for this study are derived from simulator examination reports from the NRC requalification examination cycle for nuclear power plant operators. The ASEP procedure was used to estimate human error probability (HEP) values for critical tasks, and the HEP results were compared with the failure rates observed in the examinations. The ASEP procedure was applied by PNNL operator license examiners who supplemented the limited information in the examination reports with expert judgment based upon their extensive simulator examination experience. Comparison of the average of the ASEP HEP values with the fraction of the population actually failed and demonstrated that the ASEP HEP values are larger (conservative) by a statistically significant average factor of two. Partitioning of tasks into subgroups based on the ASEP HEP values and comparison of the subgroup average ASEP HEP values with observed subgroup failure rates showed little or no conservatism for small ASEP HEP values, but considerable conservatism for larger ASEP HEP values.
ISSN:0272-4332
1539-6924
DOI:10.1111/j.1539-6924.1997.tb01283.x