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Title: Learning from Trending, Precursor Analysis, and System Failures

Conference ·
OSTI ID:1367505
 [1];  [1]
  1. Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID (United States)

Models of reliability growth relate current system unreliability to currently accumulated experience. But “experience” comes in different forms. Looking back after a major accident, one is sometimes able to identify previous events or measurable performance trends that were, in some sense, signaling the potential for that major accident: potential that could have been recognized and acted upon, but was not recognized until the accident occurred. This could be a previously unrecognized cause of accidents, or underestimation of the likelihood that a recognized potential cause would actually operate. Despite improvements in the state of practice of modeling of risk and reliability, operational experience still has a great deal to teach us, and work has been going on in several industries to try to do a better job of learning from experience before major accidents occur. It is not enough to say that we should review operating experience; there is too much “experience” for such general advice to be considered practical. The paper discusses the following: 1. The challenge of deciding what to focus on in analysis of operating experience. 2. Comparing what different models of learning and reliability growth imply about trending and precursor analysis.

Research Organization:
Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
DOE Contract Number:
AC07-05ID14517
OSTI ID:
1367505
Report Number(s):
INL/CON-15-35374
Resource Relation:
Conference: ABRISCO 2015 and Topical PSAM Meeting on Safety and Reliability of O&G Exploration and Production, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), 23-25 Nov 2015
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English