A Review of Alarm System Design for Advanced Control Rooms of Nuclear Power Plants

Alarm systems are designed to provide cues to make operators aware of an operational problem, so that mitigation actions can be taken. New technologies are enabling innovative designs of alarm systems for safety-critical systems. To help better design alarm systems in advanced control rooms of nuclear power plants (NPPs), recent researches on alarm system design in the NPP domain are reviewed from the following aspects: (1) functions of an alarm system and opportunities and challenges of new technologies; (2) effects of alarm floods and different alarm management methods; (3) visual presentation of alarm information; (4) evaluation criteria for alarm systems. Through the comprehensive literature review, this article proposes research topics related to human factors and ergonomics that are worth studying in advanced alarm systems of NPPs.