Experience bounds on nuclear plant probabilistic safety assessment

The authors´ work has been developed with the intention of establishing an international dialogue within the nuclear power community concerning the bounds of credibility to be placed on probabilistic estimates of the risk of core damage accidents for both current and future designs. The heuristic approach presented supports a proposed possibility space for such estimates between 10^-3 to 10^-6. This range is consistent with current core damage risk estimates and with the currently suggested 10^-4 NRC goal and the suggested 10^-5 industry goal for new inherently safe designs