Verification& Validation (V&V) Guidelines and Quantitative Reliability at Confidence (QRC): Basis for an Investment Strategy

Abstract

This paper represents an attempt to summarize our thoughts regarding various methods and potential guidelines for Verification and Validation (V&V) and Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) that we have observed within the broader V&V community or generated ourselves. Our goals are to evaluate these various methods, to apply them to computational simulation analyses, and integrate them into methods for Quantitative Certification techniques for the nuclear stockpile. We describe the critical nature of high quality analyses with quantified V&V, and the essential role of V&V and UQ at specified Confidence levels in evaluating system certification status. Only after V&V has contributed to UQ at confidence can rational tradeoffs of various scenarios be made. UQ of performance and safety margins for various scenarios and issues are applied in assessments of Quantified Reliability at Confidence (QRC) and we summarize with a brief description of how these V&V generated QRC quantities fold into a Value-Engineering methodology for evaluating investment strategies. V&V contributes directly to the decision process for investment, through quantification of uncertainties at confidence for margin and reliability assessments. These contributions play an even greater role in a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) environment than ever before, when reliance on simulation in the absence of the ability to perform nuclear testing is critical.

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