Research Programs

Publications:

1. Apostolakis, G.E., and Bonaca, M.V., “Issues Related to Safety Culture,” Proceedings of the 7^th International Conference on Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management (PSAM 7), Berlin, Germany, 14-18 June 2004, pp. 863-868, Editors: C. Spitzer, U. Schmocker, and V. N. Dang, Springer, London, United Kingdom.
2. Ghosh, S.T., and Apostolakis, G.E., “Learning about NPP Organizations through Root-Cause Analysis using A-CATILaC,” Proceedings of the Fourth American Nuclear Society International Topical Meeting on Nuclear Plant Instrumentation, Control, and Human-Machine Interface Technologies (NPIC&HMIT 2004), Columbus, Ohio, September 19-22, 2004, American Nuclear Society, La Grange Park, Illinois.
3. Ghosh, S.T., and Apostolakis, G.E., “Organizational Contributions to Nuclear Power Plant Safety,” Nuclear Engineering and Technology, 37:207-220, 2005.

Investigators :

• Professor G.E. Apostolakis
• S.T. Ghosh.

Support :

• Partially by CANES and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Organizational Factors in Nuclear Power Plants

Nuclear power plants (NPP) are complex socio-technological systems that rely on the success of both hardware and human components. Empirical studies of plant operating experience show that human errors are important contributors to accidents and incidents, and that organizational factors play an important role in creating contexts for human errors. Current probabilistic safety assessments (PSA) do not explicitly model the systematic contribution of organizational factors to safety. As some countries, like the United States, are moving towards increased use of risk information in the regulation and operation of nuclear facilities, PSA quality has been identified as an area for improvement. The modeling of human errors, and underlying organizational weaknesses at the root of these errors, are important sources of uncertainty in existing PSAs and areas of on-going research. This work addresses the following questions: Is there evidence that organizational factors are important to NPP safety? How do organizations contribute to safety in NPP operations? And how can these organizational contributions be captured more explicitly in PSA? We present a few past incidents that illustrate the potential safety implications of organizational deficiencies, some mechanisms by which organizational factors contribute to NPP risk, and some of the methods proposed in the literature for performing root-cause analyses and including organizational factors in PSA.