Human Factors Engineering in Nuclear Safety Assessment

The aim of the present paper is to study Human Factors Engineering (HFE) in nuclear safety assessment. We evaluated the case studies and generalized case studies of the Benchmark Exercise on Safety Engineering Practices (BESEP) project from the perspective of HFE. A special emphasis was placed on an overall quality of HFE contribution, identification and treatment of important human actions and tasks, a dialogue between Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) and HFE and evaluation of procedures. A couple of recommendations and good practices were identified, and they were evaluated by the BESEP partners. It was found that a comprehensive and consistent HFE process was considered very relevant to the Generalized Case Studies (GCSs), and HFE analyses such as function and task analysis and treatment of important human actions play an important role in designing interfaces for operator-plant system interaction. The requirements for a comprehensive and structured procedure development process were also considered highly important. By exploiting the results of the BESEP project and existing HFE guidance, a framework for a risk-informed HFE process was proposed, which is based on a tight interaction between HFE, HRA and HSI (human-system interface), procedure and training design activities.