ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
2025 ANS Winter Conference & Expo
November 9–12, 2025
Washington, DC|Washington Hilton
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Sep 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
Fusion Science and Technology
October 2025
Latest News
A wave of new U.S.-U.K. deals ahead of Trump’s state visit
President Trump will arrive in the United Kingdom this week for a state visit that promises to include the usual pomp and ceremony alongside the signing of a landmark new agreement on U.S.-U.K. nuclear collaboration.
Nathan Siu, Ali Mosleh
Nuclear Technology | Volume 84 | Number 3 | March 1989 | Pages 265-281
Technical Paper | Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Risk Management / Nuclear Safety | doi.org/10.13182/NT89-A34210
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Uncertainties in the estimation of parameters for common-cause failure models arise not only because of the small number of common-cause failure events but also because recorded events may not be relevant to the analysis of a particular plant. The data base for a plant-specific analysis may therefore be uncertain. A Bayesian methodology for treating data base uncertainties in the estimation of common-cause failure model parameters is developed and applied to a three-pump auxiliary feedwater system. Sensitivity analyses show that the results are not strongly sensitive to assumptions concerning prior distribution type and shape, but do depend somewhat on the degree of state-of-knowledge dependence between uncertain events. These analyses also show that ignoring the uncertainties in the data can lead to significant estimation errors. Finally, an approximate methodology for treating uncertain data is examined; this method provides reasonable estimates of the mean values of the common-cause failure model parameters, but underpredicts the uncertainty in these parameters.