Post-Accident Human Reliability Analysis and Improvement of Operator Performance in a Chinese Nuclear Power Plant

Human Reliability Analysis (HRA) is an important part of Probabilistic Safety Assessment (PSA) in a nuclear power plant (NPP). It can be used to evaluate and quantify the behaviors of the operators in a main control room (MCR) for a safety assessment. Most of the MCR operator actions fall within category C (post-accident) human factor events. The paper analyzes the post-accident operator´s behaviors quantitatively and makes a classification and divides them into groups on the basis of an actual HRA analysis of a pressurized water reactor (PWR) of a NPP in China. The basic human errors involved in events in the NPP and their weightiness are ranked in sequence to obtain the order of operator actions to be as a basis to improve the performance of the operators including the rectification of emergency operating procedures (EOPs) and the improvement of management and training.