Developing probabilistic safety performance margins for unknown and underappreciated risks

: Probabilistic safety requirements currently formulated or proposed for space systems, nuclear reactor systems, nuclear weapon systems, and other types of systems that have a low probability potential for high consequence accidents depend on showing that the probability of such accidents is below a specified safety threshold or goal. Verification of compliance depends heavily upon synthetic modeling techniques such as PRA. To determine whether or not a system meets its probabilistic requirements, it is necessary to consider whether there are significant risks that are not fully considered in the PRA either because they are not known at the time or because their importance is not fully understood. The ultimate objective is to establish a reasonable margin to account for the difference between known risks and actual risks in attempting to validate compliance with a probabilistic safety threshold or goal. In this paper, we examine data accumulated over the past 60 years from the space pr...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2016
• Where: RESS
• Authors: Allan S. Benjamin, Homayoon Dezfuli, Chris Everett
• Keywords: RESS 2016