An application of the explicit method for analysing intersystem dependencies in the evaluation of event trees

Abstract We discuss in this paper a computational application of the explicit method for analyzing event trees in the context of probabilistic risk assessments. A detailed analysis of the explicit method is presented, including the train level analysis (TLA) of safety systems and the impact vector method. It is shown that the penalty for not adopting TLA is that in some cases non-conservative results may be reached. The impact vector method can significantly reduce the number of sequences to be considered, and its use has inspired the definition of a dependency matrix, which enables the proper running of a computer code especially developed for analysing event trees. This code constructs and quantifies the event trees in the fashion just discussed, by receiving as input the construction and quantification dependencies defined in the dependency matrix. The code has been extensively used in the Angra 1 PRA currently underway. In its present version it gives as output the dominant sequences for each given initiator, properly classifying them in core-degradation classes as specified by the user. This calculation is made in a pointwise fashion. Extensions of this code are being developed in order to perform uncertainty analyses on the dominant sequences and also risk importance measures of the safety systems envolved.