A Methodology for Evaluating Quantitative Nuclear Safety Culture Impact

Abstract

Through several accidents of NPPs including the Fukushima Daiichi in 2011 and Chernobyl accidents in 1986, nuclear safety culture has been emphasized in reactor safety world-widely. In Korea, KHNP evaluates the safety culture of NPP itself. KHNP developed the principles of the safety culture in consideration of the international standards. A questionnaire and interview questions are also developed based on these principles and it is used for evaluating the safety culture. However, existing methodology to evaluate the safety culture has some disadvantages. First, it is difficult to maintain the consistency of the assessment. Second, the period of safety culture assessment is too long (every two years) so it has limitations in preventing accidents occurred by a lack of safety culture. Third, it is not possible to measure the change in the risk of NPPs by weak safety culture since it is not clearly explains the effect of safety culture on the safety of NPPs. In this study, Safety Culture Impact Assessment Model (SCIAM) is developed overcoming these disadvantages. In this study, SCIAM which overcoming disadvantages of exiting safety culture assessment method is developed. SCIAM uses SCII to monitor the statues of the safety culture periodically and also uses RCDF to quantify the safety culture impact on NPP's safety. It is significant that SCIAM represents the standard of the healthy nuclear safety culture, while the exiting safety culture assessment presented only vulnerability of the safety culture of organization. SCIAM might contribute to monitoring the level of safety culture periodically and, to improving the safety of NPP