PROPOSED BENCHMARK CASES FOR PROLIFERATION RISK ASSESSMENT MODELING

With the expansion of nuclear power to new comer states, interest in proliferation risk analysis has increased. Assessing adversary success probabilities for proliferation risk is one of three major components in a larger research project undertaken to reduce perceived shortcomings in existing proliferation resistance and proliferation risk tools. The other two components are the decision to proliferate by adversaries and the consequences of proliferation to the user. This paper discusses a general formulation for proliferation risk analysis and a process in calculating adversary success probabilities. We focus on the development and validation of benchmarks for calibrating nuclear proliferation success probabilities. The benchmark cases focus on comparing the change in adversary success probability when altering only a single parameter in the nuclear system. Results from the benchmark cases using the Texas A&M University PRAETOR tool are presented.