Title: Verification of nuclear power plants safety systems

Authors: Elena Ilina; Håkan Sundquist

Addresses: Division of Structural Design and Bridges, The Royal Institute of Technology, Brinellvägen 34, Stockholm, Sweden ' Division of Structural Design and Bridges, The Royal Institute of Technology, Brinellvägen 34, Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: Although safety is and has always been the primary objective for the nuclear community, it happens that the established practices for verification of nuclear plants' safety systems fail to provide reliable knowledge. The traditional investigation techniques have proven to be insufficient in their attempts to solve the problems and to prevent new failures. In this paper, difficulties in performing reliable verifications of safety systems are viewed through a lens of knowledge management. The focus is on a transformational development of knowledge from the currently accepted knowledge through acquiring a new knowledge. It is suggested that knowledge activities should be established in the plants for all safety systems to ensure allocation of necessary resources for reliable knowledge.

Keywords: nuclear power plants; nuclear knowledge management; safety system verification; activity theory; ignorance of ignorance; ignorance awareness; nuclear safety; nuclear energy; knowledge acquisition; reliable knowledge; knowledge reliability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNKM.2013.051808

International Journal of Nuclear Knowledge Management, 2013 Vol.6 No.1, pp.88 - 96

Published online: 20 Sep 2014 *

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