Analytic Probabilistic Safety Analysis under Severe Uncertainty
Publication: ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering
Volume 6, Issue 1
Abstract
Exact analytic expressions are given to evaluate the reliability of systems consisting of components, connected in parallel or series, subject to imprecise failure distributions. We also proposed a simplified version of the first-order reliability method to deal with imprecision. This development allows engineers to evaluate the reliability of systems without having to resort to optimization techniques and/or Monte Carlo simulation. In addition, this framework does not need to assume a distribution for the epistemic uncertainty, which permits a robust analysis even with limited data. In this way, the approach removes a significant barrier to the modeling of epistemic uncertainties in industrial probabilistic safety analysis workflows.
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Acknowledgments
This research has been generously supported by the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Nuclear Fission - Next Generation Nuclear (Grant No. EP/L015390/1) which is gratefully acknowledged by the authors. The authors express their gratitude for insightful discussion regarding the industrial application of PSA with Professor Nawal K. Prinja (Technology Director of Clean Energy, Wood plc).
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Published In
ASCE-ASME Journal of Risk and Uncertainty in Engineering Systems, Part A: Civil Engineering
Volume 6 • Issue 1 • March 2020
Copyright
©2019 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 30, 2018
Accepted: May 3, 2019
Published online: Oct 31, 2019
Published in print: Mar 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Mar 31, 2020
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