(GRS 440) Generation of Integral Experiment Covariance Data and their Impact on Criticality Safety Validation

The quantification of statistical dependencies in data of critical experiments and how to account for them properly in validation procedures has been discussed in the literature by various groups. However, these subjects are still an active topic in the Expert Group on Uncertainty Analysis for Criticality Safety Assessment (UACSA) of the OECDNEA Nuclear Science Committee. The latter compiles and publishes the freely available experimental data collection, the International Handbook of Evaluated Criticality Safety Benchmark Experiments, ICSBEP. Most of the experiments were performed as series and share parts of experimental setups, consequently leading to correlation effects in the results. The correct consideration of correlated data seems to be inevitable if the experimental data in a validation procedure is limited or one cannot rely on a sufficient number of uncorrelated data sets, e.g. from different laboratories using different setups. The general determination of correlations and the underlying covariance data as well as the consideration of them in a validation procedure is the focus of the following work.