Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analysis on A Biosphere Model

  • Published : 1990.12.25

Abstract

For the performance assessment of the radioactive waste disposal system (repository), a biosphere model is suggested. This biosphere model is intended to calculate the annual doses to man caused by the contaminated river water for eight pathways and four radionuclides. This model can also be applied to assess the radiological effects of contaminated well water. To account for the uncertainties on the model parameter values, parameter distributions are assigned to these model parameters. Then, Monte Carlo simulation method with Latin Hypercube sampling technique is used. Also, sensitivity analysis is performed by using the Spearman rank correlation coefficients. It is found that these methods are a very useful tool to treat uncertainties and sensitivities on the model parameter values and to analyze the biosphere model. A conversion factor is proposed to calculate the annual dose rate to humans arising from a unit radionuclide concentration in river water. This conversion factor allows for the substitution of the biosphere model in a probabilistic performance assessment computer code by one single variable.

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