Nuclear fuel rod stored-energy uncertainty analysis: a study of error propagation in complicated models

With the increasing sophistication and use of computer codes in the nuclear industry, there is a growing awareness of the need to identify and quantify the uncertainties of these codes. In any effort to model physical mechanisms, the results obtained from the model are subject to some degree of uncertainty. This uncertainty has two primary sources. First, there is uncertainty in the model's representation of reality. Second, there is an uncertainty in the input data required by the model. If individual models are combined into a predictive sequence, the uncertainties from an individual model will propagate through the sequence and add to the uncertainty of results later obtained. Nuclear fuel rod stored-energy models, characterized as a combination of numerous submodels, exemplify models so affected. Each submodel depends on output from previous calculations and may involve iterative interdependent submodel calculations for the solution. The iterative nature of the model and the cost of running the model severely limit the uncertainty analysis procedures. An approach for uncertainty analysis under these conditions was designed for the particular case of stored-energy models. It is assumed that the complicated model is correct, that a simplified model based on physical considerations can be designed to approximate the complicated model, and that linear error propagation techniques can be used on the simplified model