Keywords
Nuclear energy plants, Dresden II control room replica, Operator training simulator, Human-machine interface for reactor control, Simulation-based reactor safety evaluation, General Electric nuclear-plant simulator development
Abstract
The United States' energy crisis, which has received so much publicity lately, has focused national attention on how we are to meet our energy demands. Proposed energy sources include conventional nuclear power plants, breeder reactor and fusion reactor plants, coal gasification, liquid hydrogen, solar energy, and geothermal energy. All of these except conventional fission plants are still on the drawing board or in the experimental laboratory, and are described briefly. Government and industry are betting heavily on conventional nuclear power plants. ($40 billion already spent by private utilities for 30 operating plants, 60 under construction, and 75 on order.) A few unpublicized accidents and more and more complex instrumentation in nuclear power plant control rooms has pointed to a desperate need for more effective ways of training individuals to safely operate these plants. Recognizing this need, General Electric Company designed and built a very realistic computer-driven simulator of a plant control room. The physical enclosures and instrumentation duplicates the Dresden II control room in every way, and response to operator manipulation of controls duplicates that of a real plant. The bulk of this paper describes the simulator and its development. The last section raises questions concerning hazards of continued growth of nuclear power and presents some alternatives.
Graduation Date
1973
Semester
Spring
Advisor
Dennis, John D.
Degree
Master of Science (M.S.)
College
College of Engineering
Degree Program
Engineering
Format
Pages
50 pages
Language
English
Rights
Written permission granted by copyright holder to the University of Central Florida Libraries to digitize and distribute for nonprofit, educational purposes.
Length of Campus-only Access
None
Access Status
Masters Thesis (Open Access)
Identifier
DP0003510
Subjects
Nuclear energy -- Plants; Nuclear power plants--Computer simulation; Nuclear power plants--Control rooms; Nuclear power plants--Study and teaching; Nuclear power plants--Safety measures--Simulation methods; Nuclear engineering--Computer simulation
STARS Citation
Adams, John Jacob, "A Nuclear Power Plant Simulator" (1973). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 40.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/rtd/40
Contributor (Linked data)
University of Central Florida. College of Engineering [VIAF]
Collection (Linked data)
Accessibility Status
Searchable text