Calculating uncertainties of safeguards indices (error propagation)

Statistical methods play an important role in making references about a material unaccounted for (MUF), shipper-receiver difference, operator-inspector difference, and other safeguards indices. This session considers the sources and types of measurement errors and treats a specific example to illustrate how the variance of MUF is calculated for the model plant. The purpose of this session is to enable participants to: (1) identify the sources of measurement errors pertinent to safeguards for model plant and similar plants; (2) characterize the types of measurement errors as they affect the uncertainties of safeguards indices; (3) calculate the variance of any arbitrary function of random variables; and (4) calculate the variances of the plant MUF for plants similar to the model plant