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Title: Physical Uncertainty Bounds (PUB)

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1209314· OSTI ID:1209314
 [1];  [1]
  1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

This paper introduces and motivates the need for a new methodology for determining upper bounds on the uncertainties in simulations of engineered systems due to limited fidelity in the composite continuum-level physics models needed to simulate the systems. We show that traditional uncertainty quantification methods provide, at best, a lower bound on this uncertainty. We propose to obtain bounds on the simulation uncertainties by first determining bounds on the physical quantities or processes relevant to system performance. By bounding these physics processes, as opposed to carrying out statistical analyses of the parameter sets of specific physics models or simply switching out the available physics models, one can obtain upper bounds on the uncertainties in simulated quantities of interest.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1209314
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-14-20441
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English