Performance shaping factor taxonomy for human reliability analysis on mitigating nuclear power plant accidents caused by extreme external hazards

Abstract

After the Fukushima accident, several unexpected issues including human factor issues emerged, which had not been seriously considered before the accident. Even though various human reliability analysis (HRA) methods and their performance shaping factor (PSF) taxonomies were developed, most of them and their PSF taxonomies were not focused for hazardous accidents caused by extreme external events such as tsunamis and seismic events. For developing a new systematic PSF taxonomy for HRA for extreme conditions caused by severe external hazards in NPPs, we scrutinized human factor issues observed by the Fukushima accident and derived key considerations of human factors under extreme situations through literature surveys. Existing PSFs and their taxonomies for several HRA methods were reviewed and determined the structure of a new PSF taxonomy for unexpected severe conditions caused by extreme external hazard as well.