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Total System Performance Assessment for Waste Disposal Using a Logic Tree Approach
Author(s) -
Kessler John H.,
McGuire Robin K.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
risk analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.972
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1539-6924
pISSN - 0272-4332
DOI - 10.1111/j.1539-6924.1999.tb00451.x
Subject(s) - radioactive waste , fault tree analysis , probabilistic logic , spent nuclear fuel , high level waste , tree (set theory) , conceptual model , engineering , computer science , reliability engineering , environmental science , waste management , mathematics , mathematical analysis , database , artificial intelligence
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has sponsored the development of a model to assess the long‐term, overall “performance” of the candidate spent fuel and high‐level radioactive waste (HLW) disposal facility at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The model simulates the processes that lead to HLW container corrosion, HLW mobilization from the spent fuel, and transport by groundwater, and contaminated groundwater usage by future hypothetical individuals leading to radiation doses to those individuals. The model must incorporate a multitude of complex, coupled processes across a variety of technical disciplines. Furthermore, because of the very long time frames involved in the modeling effort (>10 4 years), the relative lack of directly applicable data, and many uncertainties and variabilities in those data, a probabilistic approach to model development was necessary. The developers of the model chose a logic tree approach to represent uncertainties in both conceptual models and model parameter values. The developers felt the logic tree approach was the most appropriate. This paper discusses the value and use of logic trees applied to assessing the uncertainties in HLW disposal, the components of the model, and a few of the results of that model. The paper concludes with a comparison of logic trees and Monte Carlo approaches.