Use of probabilistic risk assessment for safety evaluation

Probabilistic methods to analyse performance aspects of complex systems have become a powerful tool for safety evaluations. Since a survey of the use of probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) on the nuclear field in the F.R. Germany has been given at the IAEA Conference in Stockholm in the fall 1980, this paper describes more recent developments and applications. This is the use of PRA on the nuclear field in licensing procedures, in recently performed quantitative comparison of a PWR (type Biblis) with the fast breeder reactor SNR-300 will be discussed in more detail. Obviously, probabilistic methods will increasingly be incorporated into decision-making in various fields, especially in the nuclear field