Best estimate method and safety analysis II

Abstract We regard the safety analysis models as non-linear input–output maps. We assume random input and perform a statistical analysis of the output variables, define statistical test functions to decide whether two outputs are correlated, whether they are linearly dependent or there is a non-linear relationship between them. The methodology is applied to ATHLET calculations and we show chaotic behavior to occur in a domain of the investigated time interval. The time dependence of the upper tolerance region for two strongly correlated output variables is determined.