Multivariate Analysis of Human Error Incidents Occurring at Nuclear Power Plants: Several Occurrence Patterns of Observed Human Errors

Abstract:

This paper describes the results obtained in respect of typical human errors together with their information-processing phases, causal factors and situational factors found commonly among incidents analysed at domestic nuclear power plants (NPPs). The Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry has been conducting detailed and structured analysis of all incidents reported during the last 31 years and has stored them in a database. At first, all case studies were classified into several categories. Next, multivariate analysis was applied. These results suggested that there were several occurrence patterns that were identified how errors occurred at NPPs in the past.