Information presentation in power plant control rooms

The objective of this study is to support operators' work especially in the control rooms of power plant. The exemplified process is a pressurised water (nuclear) reactor (PWR). The man process interface is an information system that covers information refining, information presentation, information system handling, and process control. The emphasis in this study is on the organisation and presentation of information and on the alert function that is part of the information system. Another goal is to design the alert function so as to radically reduce the number of alarms during plant shutdown, e.g. during the refuelling or maintenance period and during a disturbance. Further, the experimental validation of CFMS (Critical Function Monitoring System), developed by Combustion Engineering, Inc. in the USA is described briefly. The validation was made at the Loviisa training simulator in the autumn of 1982. CFMS is a safety-related functional alarm system. The functional decomposition of information has turned out to be successful and it is helpful in designing displays. Preliminary criteria for designing displays, the structure of the information presentation system, and the illustration of main interactions are presented. General practical ideas on designing the alert function seem very promising. Preliminary results of the CFMS validation are presented. Further, some ideas are presented on how to carry out the analysis and how to make such validations in the future. A new idea for the evaluation of core safety is presented, based on control theory concepts.