State of the art PRA methods, i.e. Dynamic PRA
(DPRA) methodologies, largely employ system
simulator codes to accurately model system dynamics.
Typically, these system simulator codes (e.g., RELAP5 )
are coupled with other codes (e.g., ADAPT,
RAVEN that monitor and control the simulation. The
latter codes, in particular, introduce both deterministic
(e.g., system control logic, operating procedures) and
stochastic (e.g., component failures, variable uncertainties)
elements into the simulation. A typical DPRA analysis is
performed by:
1. Sampling values of a set of parameters from the
uncertainty space of interest
2. Simulating the system behavior for that specific set of
parameter values
3. Analyzing the set of simulation runs
4. Visualizing the correlations between parameter values
and simulation outcome
Step 1 is typically performed by randomly sampling
from a given distribution (i.e., Monte-Carlo) or selecting
such parameter values as inputs from the user (i.e.,
Dynamic Event Tre