Representation of analysis results involving aleatory and epistemic uncertainty

Abstract

Procedures are described for the representation of results in analyses that involve both aleatory uncertainty and epistemic uncertainty, with aleatory uncertainty deriving from an inherent randomness in the behaviour of the system under study and epistemic uncertainty deriving from a lack of knowledge about the appropriate values to use for quantities that are assumed to have fixed but poorly known values in the context of a specific study. Aleatory uncertainty is usually represented with probability and leads to cumulative distribution functions (CDFs) or complementary CDFs (CCDFs) for analysis results of interest. Several mathematical structures are available for the representation of epistemic uncertainty, including interval analysis, possibility theory, evidence theory and probability theory. In the presence of epistemic uncertainty, there is not a single CDF or CCDF for a given analysis result. Rather, there is a family of CDFs and a corresponding family of CCDFs that derive from epistemic uncertainty and have an uncertainty structure that derives from the particular uncertainty structure (e.g. interval analysis, possibility theory, evidence theory or probability theory) used to represent epistemic uncertainty. Graphical formats for the representation of epistemic uncertainty in families of CDFs and CCDFs are investigated and presented for the indicated characterisations of epistemic uncertainty.

Keywords:

• aleatory uncertainty
• epistemic uncertainty
• evidence theory
• interval analysis
• possibility theory
• probability theory

Acknowledgements

This work, performed at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), which is a multiprogramme laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, was for the US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under Contract No. DE-AC04-94AL85000. Review at SNL was provided by Laura P. Swiler and Timothy G. Trucano. Editorial support was provided by F. Puffer and J. Ripple of Tech Reps, a division of Ktech Corporation.