Engineered barrier system failure modeling

In this paper a statistical model to calculate the cumulative failure distribution for high-level radioactive waste containers based upon exponential and Weibull distributions is presented. This model has been employed to describe the performance of the engineered barrier system (EBS) as one part of a risk-based performance assessment model of the Yucca Mountain site. The model employs three parameter Weibull distributions to describe a majority of the container failures. Early container failures are described using exponential distributions. Parameter value selections are based upon simple mechanistic submodels describing failure of specific components of the EBS. The impact of EBS performance is demonstrated through the comparison of single barrier and multiple barrier systems