Phased Mission Analysis: A Review of New Developments and An Application

Both exact and approximate methods for obtaining the unreliability of a nonrepairable system undergoing a phased mission are presented. The techniques are applied to an emergency core cooling system for a boiling water reactor. The estimates for the example agree well with the exact solution. The accuracy and ease of implementation are compared for both methods. The approximation techniques for unavailability estimates for phased missions contained in this paper are useful for industrial applications. The techniques are implementable and existing computer programs such as MOCUS, PREP, and KITT can be used for the analysis although such use is not efficient at this time. These programs are currently being modified, for efficient use in phased mission problems, at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. MOCUS, PREP, and KITT are obtainable from the Argonne Code Center; 9700 South Cass Avenue; Argonne, IL 60439 USA.