Human reliability analysis in the nuclear industry of Korea: History, current status, and path forward

In socio-technical systems such as nuclear power plants (NPPs), human performance degradation is one of the primary factors in safety-significant events. Human reliability analysis (HRA) has therefore become indispensable in probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) to enhance system safety by quantifying the likelihood of human errors pertaining to safety-critical tasks. Accordingly, the quality of PSA results heavily depends on the robustness of HRA, particularly regarding context-based task analysis and accurate quantification methods. While HRA research in the Rep. of Korea has historically focused on large-scale commercial plants, the industry is currently shifting toward advanced reactors, including small modular reactors (SMRs), which necessitates a corresponding shift in HRA focus. In this paper, the landscape of HRA research activities in Korea is described by introducing past achievements and current methodologies based on a general HRA process. Furthermore, this paper suggests future research directions to address the necessities for developing and validating SMR-specific HRA methodologies.