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Journal Articles

Improvement of engineer ethics education using resilience engineering concept

Oba, Kyoko; Yoshizawa, Atsufumi*; Kitamura, Masaharu*

Kogaku Kyoiku, 69(3), p.3 - 10, 2021/05

https://doi.org/10.4307/jsee.69.3_3

The purpose of engineering ethics education is to understand the effects and impacts of technology on society and nature and the responsibilities that engineers have to fulfill for society. There are many cases used in the educational method so that the students can understand the problems surrounding the engineers. However, most of the cases correspond to event scenarios where engineers have failed to maintain safety. Resilience engineering was born from the criticism of safety measures for the purpose of preventing recurrence by seeking human error and organizational culture as the cause of accidents in the field of ergonomics. Its features are that people are considered as beings that realize safety in dangerous systems, and that they focus on good practices. This paper describes the improvement of engineering ethics education by utilizing resilience engineering concept.

Journal Articles

Enhancing emergency response in the field based on analysis of workload distribution at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station

Yoshizawa, Atsufumi*; Oba, Kyoko; Kitamura, Masaharu*

Nihon Genshiryoku Gakkai Wabun Rombunshi, 18(2), p.55 - 68, 2019/06

https://doi.org/10.3327/taesj.J18.041

This study aims to improve the potential of an emergency response by analyzing the workload management during the accident at the Emergency Response Center (ERC) of TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Specifically, the research focused on the response of the ERC during the time between the discontinuation of Unit 3 core water injection and its recovery. It identified the different types of workload at the ERC had and how they had been managed based on the record of a TV conference. It also deduced the casual factors of the responses, supplementing the interview record of the director of ERC at the time by applying workload management analysis. On the basis of these findings, lessons to enhance the potential of the on-site emergency response have been obtained for ERC and outside organizations.

Journal Articles

Lessons learned from the process focusing on achieving the state of cold shutdown of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident

Yoshizawa, Atsufumi*; Oba, Kyoko; Kitamura, Masaharu*

Ningen Kogaku, 54(3), p.124 - 134, 2018/06

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant caused a severe accident which released a large amount of radioactivity triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake. The existing investigation reports of the accident prepared by several institutions pay attention only to the process which caused the accident but not much to the accident mitigation or the recovery process. This study focused on Unit 3 of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, including its recovery process from the accident. Based on the public data, the time sequences for the recovery process between the accident occurrence and the state of cold shutdown were classified. Then, the groups of actions were sorted out in terms of ergonomics viewpoint. The important responses in the recovery process were identified and analyzed referring to the m-SHEL model. As a result, new lessons were learned from the accident case regarding the actions required for recovering from the accident.

Journal Articles

Study on improving safety by applying Safety-II concept based on accident responding analysis for Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Yoshizawa, Atsufumi*; Oba, Kyoko; Kitamura, Masaharu*

Ningen Kogaku, 54(1), p.1 - 13, 2018/02

AA2017-0637.pdf:1.46MB

The two approaches as the concepts to ensure safety of the complicated socio-technical systems have been proposed by Hollnagel. They are the safety concepts called "Safety-I" to reduce risks and "Safety-II" to expand successes. The resilience engineering is suggested as the methodology to achieve Safety-II. The study analyzes the recovery of the water injection of Unit 3 based on the resilience engineering, focusing on the fact that preventing further progress of the accident case in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant which has been evaluated for extracting risk factors. Based on those results, the study has clarified the method of learning to enhance safety which has a different view from existing accident investigation.

Journal Articles