Behavioral simulation of a nuclear power plant operator crew for human-machine system design

This article proposes an architecture of behavioral simulation of an operator crew in a nuclear power plant including group processes and interactions between the operators and their working environment. An operator model was constructed based on the conceptual human information processor and then substantiated as a knowledge-based system with multiple sets of knowledge base and blackboard, each of which represents an individual operator. From a trade-off between reality and practicality, we adopted an architecture of simulation that consists of the operator, plant and environment models in order to consider operator-environment interactions. The simulation system developed on this framework and called OCCS was tested using a scenario of BWR plant operation. The case study showed that operator-environment interactions have significant effects on operator crew performance and that they should be considered properly for simulating behavior of human-machine systems. The proposed architecture contributed to more realistic simulation in comparison with an experimental result, and a good prospect has been obtained that computer simulation of an operator crew is feasible and useful for human-machine system design. © 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.