sourcesofuncertainties-peer.docVIP

Summary of 1/17/02 Breakout Session on Uncertainties in PBEE Methodology NSF Statement: Weakness: Lack of detailed plans and priority to identify important sources of uncertainty and model the uncertainty within the PBEE framework is currently a weakness but will soon become a threat if not addressed. The participants of the breakout session came to the following (mostly“ obvious”) conclusions: Key issues in performance assessment are the tasks of Identification of sources of uncertainty Quantification of the level of uncertainty present in each source Propagation of these uncertainties into the quantities that control performance assessment, and Refinement of probabilistic models, if merited. We should distinguish between aleatory and epistemic uncertainties. The former should be evaluated and propagated to assess their effect on the DVs, but by definition there is little that can be done to reduce them. Aleatory uncertainties exist mostly in IM prediction and, to a lesser degree, in record-to-record EDP response given IM. More emphasis should be placed on epistemic uncertainties, because these we can reduce through research efforts, and some may be significant especially as we push into near-failure predictions. All important sources of uncertainties should be identified and, to the extent possible, quantified. We recognize that the latter is an idealistic statement, because quantification of uncertainties is mostly a matter of information (i.e., data, expert opinions) acquisition, and it will take much more than the PEER effort to make large headways in this aspect. But PEER should identify information needs and effective methods for information acquisition and uncertainty quantification. PEER should accelerate efforts in uncertainty quantification to the extent that reasonable bounds can be placed on important uncertainties, so that these uncertainties can be propagated through the performance methodology and their effect on performance assessment