Study and Development of a Simulation System for Dynamic Evaluation on Man-machine Interface Design of Advanced Main Control Rooms of Nuclear Power Plants

Since the man-machine interfaces (MMI) of a main control room provide the control platform of a nuclear power plant (NPP), the development of the design quality of MMIs plays a very important role in the operation of a NPP. With the development of digital technology, the development of the advanced main control rooms (AMCRs) has become an inexorable trend. Therefore, the positive and the negative effects of AMCRs on human factors engineering need to be evaluated. For this purpose, a simulation system has been studied and developed to quantitatively evaluate a MMI design from the viewpoint of human factors. The simulation system takes advantage of computer simulation technology to simulate an operating process of an interaction between operators and a MMI design under an instruction of an operation procedure of the AMCR of a NPP. Meanwhile, the necessary data are recorded for evaluation. It integrates two editors and one simulator. In the paper, the simulation system is presented in detail. Furthermore, one sample is given to show the results of each of these three subsystems.