Importance measures for nuclear waste repositories

Several importance measures are identified for possible use in the performance assessment of a high-level nuclear waste repository. These importance measures are based on concepts of importance used in system reliability analysis, but the concepts are modified and adapted to the special characteristics of the repository and similar passive systems. In particular, the importance measures proposed here are based on risk (in comparison to traditional importance measures which are based on frequency of failure) and are intended to be more suitable to systems comprised of components whose behavior is most easily and naturally represented as continuous, rather than binary. These importance measures appear to be able to evaluate systems comprised of both continuous-behavior and binary-behavior components. Three separate examples are provided to illustrate the concepts and behavior of these importance measures. The first example demonstrates various formulations for the importance measures and their implementation for a simple radiation safety system comprised of a radiation source and three shields. The second example demonstrates use of these importance measures for a system comprised of components modeled with binary behavior and components modeled with continuous behavior. The third example investigates the use of these importance measures for a proposed repository system, using a total system model and code currently under development. Currently, these concepts and formulations of importance are undergoing further evaluation for a repository system to determine to what degree they provide useful insights and to determine which formulations are most useful.