Certifying advanced plants: a US NRC human factors perspective

The US NRC began the process of certifying advanced nuclear power plants in the early 1990s. The design certification process requires an applicant to comply with technically relevant portions of the regulations established as a result of Three Mile Island. Included as a requirement is to provide a control room design that reflects state-of-the-art human factors principles before building the human system interfaces (HSIs) for plant locations such as the main control room and remote shutdown facility. To address this requirement, the NRC developed a Human Factors Engineering Program Review Model (NUREG-0711) as guidance for the staff to use in reviewing the human factors engineering (HFE) portion of applicant submittals. To date, the NRC has reviewed applications from three designers, General Electric, ASEA Brown Boveri-Combustion Engineering, and Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Each designer has provided a different approach to developing the HSIs for their plants which has presented the NRC with a unique challenge.