ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on occurrence probabilities and consequences of events to demonstrate the process presented in this chapter. For this purpose, the

expert-opinion elicitation process can be defined as a formal process of obtaining information or answers to specific questions about certain quantities, called issues, such as failure rates, failure consequences, and expected service life. Expert-opinion elicitation should not be used in lieu of rigorous reliability and risk analytical methods but should be used to supplement them and to prepare for them. The expert-opinion elicitation process presented in this chapter is a variation of the Delphi technique (Helmer, 1968) with scenario analysis (Kahn and Wiener, 1967) based on uncertainty models (Ayyub, 1991, 1992, 1993; Haldar et al., 1997; Ayyub et al., 1997; Ayyub and Gupta, 1997; Ayyub, 1998; Cooke, 1991), social research (Bailey, 1994), USACE studies (Ayyub et al., 1996; Baecher, 1998), ignorance, knowledge, information and uncertainty of Chapter 1, experts and opinions of Chapter 3, nuclear industry recommendations (NRC, 1997), and the Stanford Research Institute protocol (Spetzler and Stael von Holstein, 1975).