Citation

Heising CD, Patterson EI. Reliab. Eng. 1984; 7(1): 21-52.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1984, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/0143-8174(84)90048-9

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Expert judgement concerning human performance in nuclear power plants is quantitatively coupled with actuarial data on such performance in order to derive plant-specific human-error rate probability distributions. The coupling procedure consists of a two-stage application of Bayes' theorem to information which is grouped by type. The first information type contains expert judgement concerning human performance at nuclear power plants in general. Data collected on human performance at a group of similar plants forms the second information type. The third information type consists of data on human performance in a specific plant which has the same characteristics as the group members. The first and second information types are coupled in the first application of Bayes' theorem to derive a probability distribution for population performance. This distribution is then combined with the third information type in a second application of Bayes' theorem to determine a plant-specific human-error rate probability distribution. The two-stage Bayesian procedure thus provides a means to quantitatively couple sparse data with expert judgement in order to obtain a human performance probability distribution based upon available information. Example calculations for a group of like reactors are also given.