aDepartment of Mathematics and Statistics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1804, USA;bProStat, Mesa, AZ 85204-5326, USA;cSandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM 87185-0828, USA
Abstract:
Two approaches to the calculation of probability of loss of assured safety (PLOAS) in temperature dependent weak link/strong link systems are described and compared on the basis of three test problems. The approaches differ in that the first approach permits a separation of epistemic and aleatory uncertainty in the calculation of PLOAS and the second approach combines epistemic and aleatory uncertainty before the calculation of PLOAS. A discrepancy in the results obtained with the test problems led to the identification of an implementation error for one of the approaches. The importance and efficacy of well-designed verification test problems are demonstrated.