1. Design: Due to a decades-long loss of momentum in the nuclear energy business (especially in the US), nuclear power plant designs are just beginning to catch up with other modern technologies, and the newest designs on the drawing boards today are light-years beyond the facilities installed at most existing nuclear facilities in the world.  While technically more complex, new plant designs have less wiring, fewer valves and pumps, smaller stronger buildings, simply put, less "mechanical" things that CAN go wrong.  At the same time, newer designs are nearly 100% SCADA-based (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition) so plant operators of modern facilities have more information at their fingertips that they can use to make decisions, so the job is more complex, and often each individual is using more data than ever before to make decisions.  We believe that simulation technologies can be used to advance the state-of-the-art in SCADA design and even improve underlying plant designs by testing and simulating how operators will actually evaluate and interpret data in a variety of circumstances (especially in emergency situations).

2. Security: The nuclear security issue includes the notion of protecting nuclear facilities and the complete fuel cycle from external threats, plus integration of surrounding communities in emergency action plans.  Some of the greatest "threats" to nuclear safety are related to the lack of a properly implemented "safety culture," and we believe that simulation can play a key role in instilling the safety culture, and by sharing simulations across deparments (including security personnel and external emergency responders).

3. Operations: The backbone of any nuclear power facility are the Policies and Operations guides that tell all personal what to do in each situation.  As plants become more technologically sophisticated and security issues more important, however, the related operations and policy manuals fill more volumes than ever.  Most training today is done to reinforce the use of these guides, and over time, with seasoned operators, the underlying logic and step-by-step procedures become instinctive.  The most important part of training for a new parachuter is to step on a ladder and jump and pull the rip-cord, and new trainees do this over and over before the first jump.  Instructors have them do this because they want this action to be instinctive, so that when the adrenaline is pumping after you exit the airplane for the first time, your "insticnt" is to do the thing that will save your life (as opposed to sreaming till you lose consciousness).  Simple simulation exercises can similarly be used to reinforce each and every operational policy in a nuclear facility, and then multi-dimensional simulations can help operators learn how to interpret seemingly conflicting information, which is often where use of policy manuals alone seems to break down.

4. Training: Currently, most nuclear power plants employ training paradigms developed more than 30 years ago, and there is almost no effort afoot to update or modernize the training methods.  However, with dozens of years of operational experience, most of the current mature plant operator work force is very-well trained.  As more experienced operators retire, however, a crop of newly graduated nuclear engineers are replacing them, and while these new engineers benefit from newer education paradigms employed in colleges today, what they lack is "experience."  Again, absent those years of historical real-life experience, use of simulation technologies can significantly reinforce classroom training.  Also, since most daily operational duties are routine, it is natural that it would take many years before enough real-life anomolies are experienced and a new operator becomes truly seasoned.  With new training paradigms, operational anomolies and emergencies can be simulated in every conceivable way (and even random and inconceivable ways), so that the seasoning of new operators can happen much faster.

5. Simulation: This is the testing, verification and skills refinement part of insuring safety.  When pilots steps into a flight simulator, they do mostly to test their ability to make proper decisions in light of training received outside of the simulator, so simulation training in most cases is akin to a "skills test."  When a new airplane is developed, exhaustive simulation work is used to modify designs, develop proper procedures, and create training regimens, and in these cases, simulation can be the MOST IMPORTANT factor in creating safer skies.  The same is true in nuclear power plant safety, although today, most simulation being done in the nuclear industry is very limited and not at all sophisticated compared to the modern computer modelling technologies used by other industries.

One of the key goals of this site is to assist with the modernization of nuclear power plant training and simulation technologies. The authors of this site, while interested in documenting and studying all areas of nuclear safety, are particularly interested in advances in the design and operational paradigms used in the nuclear power industry today, particularly the use of simulation and modelling technologies as they apply to improving nuclear energy safety.