Developing a knowledge base for the management of severe accidents

Prior to the accident at Three Mile Island, little attention was given to the development of procedures for the management of severe accidents, that is, accidents in which the reactor core is damaged. Since TMI, however, significant effort has been devoted to developing strategies for severe accident management. At the same time, the potential application of artificial intelligence techniques, particularly expert systems, to complex decision-making tasks such as accident diagnosis and response has received considerable attention. The need to develop strategies for accident management suggests that a computerized knowledge base such as used by an expert system could be developed to collect and organize knowledge for severe accident management. This paper suggests a general method which could be used to develop such a knowledge base, and how it could be used to enhance accident management capabilities