I-Risk: development of an integrated technical and management risk methodology for chemical installations

This paper presents an integrated quantitative risk assessment method for hazardous installations, taking into account management as well as technical design and producing risk level measures. The key components of the I-Risk methodology are the technical model, the management model and their interface. The technical model consists of developing a master logic diagram (MLD) delineating the major immediate causes of loss of containment (LOC) and associated quantitative models for assessing their frequency. The management model consists of the tasks, which must be carried out systematically in the primary business functions (such as operations, emergency operations, maintenance and modifications). A management audit quantifies the quality of these management tasks. The management–technical interface modifies certain parameters of the technical model on the basis of the quality of the safety management system of the specific installation. The methodology is exemplified through its application to the risk assessment of an ammonia storage facility. A detailed technical model simulating the response of the system to various initiating events is developed along with a detailed management model simulating the influence of the plant-specific management and organisational practices. The overall effect is quantified through the frequency of release of ammonia as a result of a loss of containment in a storage tank and in a pipeline.     

Quantitative assessment of environmental risk due to accidental spills from onshore pipelines

The transport of hazardous materials by pipeline is widely used for the transfer of significant quantities of oil and chemicals. Due to the extremely low frequency of spills, pipelines are considered the safest mode for the land transportation of hazardous substances. Accident records, while confirming that Loss of Containment (LOC) events are rare, also point out the major-accident hazard of pipelines, due to the extremely severe potential consequences of spills. Quantitative Risk Analysis (QRA) techniques have been applied to pipelines since many years with the aim of evaluating risk for workers or exposed population. However, releases of liquids, as oil and oil products, also create an hazard to the environment, due to the potential of extensive soil and groundwater contamination. An integrated model was developed for the environmental Risk Analysis of spills from pipelines. Specific environmental risk indexes were defined, expressing the risk of soil and groundwater contamination, both in physical and economic terms. A case-study is presented and discussed to illustrate the features of the methodology. The results confirmed that the proposed model may be considered an important tool within a comprehensive approach to the management of risk related to onshore pipelines.     

Case study: Assessment on large scale LPG BLEVEs in the 2011 Tohoku earthquakes

After the 2011 Tohoku earthquakes, several chemical and oil complexes on the Pacific Ocean shoreline of northeast Japan experienced massive losses. In Chiba, a refinery operated by Cosmo Oil lost 17 LPG storage vessels which were either heavily damaged or totally destroyed by fires and explosions in the refinery. These large vessels ranged in size from 1000 to 5000 m³. The estimated volume of LPG at the time of the incident was between 400 and 5000 m³ for each vessel. Five boiling liquid expanding vapor explosions (BLEVEs) of LPG occurred, resulting in huge fire balls measuring about 500 m in diameter.A BLEVE is defined as the explosive release of expanding vapor and boiling liquid when a container holding a pressure-liquefied gas fails catastrophically. It is thus important to estimate the physical properties of superheated liquids: the thermodynamic and transport properties, the intrinsic limits to superheating and depressurization, and the nature of thermodynamic paths. Also it is hoped to provide better understanding of the vessels designed, manufactured, installed, and operated to reduce or eliminate the probability that a sequence of events will result in BLEVE or loss of primary containment. Knowledge of these matters is still incomplete. The objective of this research is to estimate the significant BLEVE phenomenon in very large scale spherical vessels based on published information in Japan. There are some models predicting BLEVEs. However, it is essential to know if this is true for very large scales such as spheres since validation is usually rare to provide confidence in estimating the superheated liquids behaviors. To this end, comparing with the information on this event, the conditions in the five LPG vessels at the time of the BLEVE were determined in terms of: duration of vessel failure (time to BLEVE); mass fraction in the vessel with time; temperature distribution in the liquid and vapor region and pressure within the vessel (e.g. initial pressure and internal high-speed transient pressure during failure), by means of a computer program AFFTAC Analysis of Fire Effects on Tank Cars, which solves heat conduction, stress and a failure model of the tank, a thermodynamic model of its fluid contents, and a flow model for the lading flowing through the safety relief device. Subsequently, the consequences from the sphere BLEVE, such as the expected fireball diameter and duration and the expected blast overpressure produced by the BLEVE failures, are also subjects of active research. Here the blast using the methods of PHAST and SFPE Handbook of Fire Protection Engineering was calculated.Results suggest that methodologies here used gave reasonable estimations for such real and huge BLEVEs in a validated way, which may provide valuable guidance for risk mitigation strategy with regard to LPG facility in design, emergency planning, resiliency, operations, and risk management.     

A method for simulation of vapour cloud explosions based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD)

The effectiveness of the application of CFD to vapour cloud explosion (VCE) modelling depends on the accuracy with which geometrical details of the obstacles likely to be encountered by the vapour cloud are represented and the correctness with which turbulence is predicted. This is because the severity of a VCE strongly depends on the types of obstacles encountered by the cloud undergoing combustion; the turbulence generated by the obstacles influences flame speed and feeds the process of explosion through enhanced mixing of fuel and oxidant. In this paper a CFD-based method is proposed on the basis of the author’s finding that among the various models available for assessing turbulence, the realizable k-? model yields results closer to experimental findings than the other, more frequently used, turbulence models if used in conjunction with the eddy-dissipation model. The applicability of the method has been demonstrated in simulating the dispersion and ignition of a typical vapour cloud formed as a result of a spill from a liquid petroleum gas (LPG) tank situated in a refinery. The simulation made it possible to assess the overpressures resulting from the combustion of the flammable vapour cloud. The phenomenon of flame acceleration, which is a characteristic of combustion enhanced in the presence of obstacles, was clearly observed. Comparison of the results with an oft-used commercial software reveals that the present CFD-based method achieves a more realistic simulation of the VCE phenomena.     

Route evaluation for hazmat transportation based on total risk - A case of Indian State Highways

Risk-based hazmat transportation route evaluation involves risk calculations taking into consideration the probability of collision related accident occurrence and detailed consequence analysis of various event scenarios. Probabilistic hazmat transportation risk assessment mainly depends on three important factors i.e. accident rate, Average Daily Traffic and population density besides route length which has a definite bearing on it. An effort has been made to estimate the route segment specific (location-specific) accident rate instead of aggregate National or State average values in order to bring specificity into the issue of decision making to avoid routes with higher accident rates. Instead of using default accident rate for different highway types developed with the US data, which are not well-comparable when used in Indian situations; the author used site-specific truck accident data. Subsequently, Loss of Containment (LOC) probabilities and spillage probabilities for different route segments have been computed and compared. Finally, route segment-wise total risk is estimated which is a convenient measure of the average number of persons likely to be exposed from all the possible consequence event scenarios resulting from releases of different hazmats being transported along the studied routes. The present study highlights the route evaluation carried out based on total risk computation, without going through detailed event based consequence analysis on two State Highway routes and one major urban road passing through important industrial corridors of Surat District in western India, to enable routing decisions by local authorities and also for planning emergency mitigation purposes.     

LPG船液货泄漏事故风险评估系统研究

通过对液化石油气(LPG)船舶液货舱泄漏事故危险度因素分析,建立液化气液体货物泄漏源强、蒸气释放源强和蒸气扩散计算模型,并制定泄漏事故风险评价流程,基于VB语言编写泄漏事故风险评估系统。利用该系统能够计算得出泄漏事故发生后蒸发气在不同时刻不同区域的蒸发气浓度、爆炸或火灾后对生命财产的伤害半径以及伤害程度等相关参数。对某航行状态下的LPG实船进行模拟分析,结果表明能够对LPG船舶泄漏事故进行有效风险评估,并能对船舶航行安全应急预案的制定和事故后海事鉴定提供一定的技术帮助。     

Fire and explosion disasters occurred due to the Great East Japan Earthquake (March 11, 2011)

The Great East Japan Earthquake (magnitude 9.0 Mw: the moment magnitude scale, based on the seismic moment of the earthquake) occurred at 14:46, March 11, 2011. It triggered huge tsunami waves (seismic sea waves) that reached heights of up to about 20 m. In this paper, the fire and explosion disasters occurred due to the Great East Japan Earthquake are reported shortly. Some fires occurred in seacoast areas after tsunami attacks and some of them were spreading very widely to the tsunami flooded areas. It is important to study the mechanisms of such fires (tsunami fires) for preparing huge tsunami. After the earthquake, a very severe accident happened in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Three reactors experienced full meltdown. During this disaster, hydrogen explosions occurred and made the situation more serious. It has to be realized once again that the countermeasures for hydrogen explosions is indispensable. Also Large scale BLEVEs (Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosions) happened at LPG storage area in an oil refinery in Chiba Prefecture. This accident started from the falling down of an LPG storage tank by earthquake motions. The tank was heavier than usual, as it was filled with water (1.7 times heavier than LPG) for periodic inspection. Considering these disasters, we have to think about how we prepare the accident of low probability and of very severe consequence. Recently, the risk based approach is widely utilized. However, for such disasters it seems not enough to perform safety management only by risk based approach. Not only probabilistic approach (Risk), but also deterministic approach (Emergency plan, Mitigation technique) should be taken in account.     

Performance evaluation of process industries resilience: Risk-based with a network approach

Risk management can be defined as coordinated activities to conduct and control an organization with consideration of risk. Recently, risk management strategies have been developed to change the approach to hazards and risks. Resilience as a safety management theory considers the technical and social aspects of systems simultaneously. Resilience in process industries, as a socio-technical system, has four aspects of early detection, error-tolerant design, flexibility, and recoverability. Meanwhile, process industries' resilience has three phases: avoidance, survival, and recovery, determining the transition between normal state, process upset event, and catastrophic event. There may be various technical and social failures such as regulatory and human or organizational items that can lead to upset or catastrophic events. In the avoidance phase, the upset event is predicted, and thus, the system remains in a normal state. For the survival phase, the system state is assumed to be an upset process event, and the system tries to survive through the unhealthy process conditions or remains in the same state, probably with low performance. In the recovery phase, the system is supposed to be catastrophic, and the emergency barriers are prioritized to show the severity of the consequences and response time, leading to a resumption of a normal state. Therefore, a resilience-based network can be designed for process industries to show its inherent dynamic transition in nature. In this study, network data envelopment analysis (DEA), as a mathematical model, is used to evaluate the relative efficiency of the process industries regarding a network transition approach based on the system's internal structure. First, a resilience-based network is designed to consist of three states of normal, upset, and catastrophic events. Then, the efficiency of each industrial department, which is defined as decision-making units (DMUs), is evaluated using network DEA. As a case study, a refinery that is considered a critical process industry is assessed. Using the proposed model shows the efficient and inefficient DMUs in each of three states of normal, upset, and catastrophic events of the process and the projection onto efficient frontiers. Besides calculating the network efficiency, the performance of each state is extracted to precisely differentiate between DMUs. The results of this study, which is one of the fewest cases in the area of performance evaluation of process industries with a network approach, indicated a robust viewpoint for monitoring and assessment of risks.     

Incorporating organizational factors into probabilistic risk assessment of complex socio-technical systems: Principles and theoretical foundations

The current generation of Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA), particularly those for technical systems, does not include an explicit representation of the possible impacts of organization and management on the safety performance of equipment and personnel. There are a number of technical challenges in developing a predictive model of organizational safety performance. There is a need for a widely accepted and theoretically sound set of principles on which models of organizational influences could be developed and validated. As a result of a multidisciplinary effort, this paper explores the feasibility of developing such principles and proposes a set of principles for organizational safety risk analysis. Then, as a realization of the proposed modeling principles, a safety risk framework, named Socio-Technical Risk Analysis (SoTeRiA), is developed. SoTeRiA formally integrates the technical system risk models with the social (safety culture and safety climate) and structural (safety practices) aspects of safety prediction models, and provides a theoretical basis for the integration. A systematic view of safety culture and safety climate leaves an important gap in modeling complex system safety risk, and SoTeRiA, describing the relationship between these two concepts, bridges this gap. The framework explicitly recognizes the relationship among constructs at multiple levels of analysis, and extends the PRA framework to include the effects of organizational factors in a more comprehensive and defensible way.     

国外灾害风险评估模型对比分析

灾害风险评估模型是灾害风险管理的科学工具,为灾害应急管理决策提供技术支持。本文对国外几个应用较为广泛的灾害风险评估模型进行了系统总结,分析了风险评估的基本流程、方法及要点,从评估方法、应用特点、使用效果等多个角度对这些模型的优缺点进行详细的对比分析。同时,总结了灾害风险评估模型具备良好的科学性和实用性应符合的基本原则,并以本文介绍的风险评估模型为例,对其基本原则的符合性进行了对比分析。分析结果表明,灾害风险评估模型只有在科学性与实用性之间获得最佳平衡点,并与应急规划、风险管理与减灾过程充分结合才能获得最佳的应用效果;建立灾害风险评估模型尤其要重视公众充分参与、在风险相关部门和人群中通过风险沟通建立统一的认识、准确界定脆弱性人群、有效解决数学模型或专家判断的不确定性等关键问题。     

LPG罐区事故后果模拟与风险控制研究

LPG在储存过程中,可能由于泄漏或灾难性破裂等原因引发火灾、爆炸、中毒等重大事故。首先根据两类危险源理论,辨识与分析了LPG罐区的危险源及其危险性。然后,利用事件树方法,建立了瞬时泄漏和连续泄漏后果模型。通过研究典型的事故后果计算与模拟分析方法、风险确定与表示方法,借助PHAST和LEAK系统模拟分析与计算了某LPG罐区发生泄漏后的事故后果及其影响,并绘制了个人风险等值线和社会风险F-N曲线。最后,根据分析结果提出了多项针对性的风险控制措施。     

液化石油气站重大危险源的危险性评价

液化石油气站的罐区属于重大危险源 ,因其一旦发生泄漏 ,引起火灾、爆炸意外事故 ,造成的伤亡及财产损失巨大 ,评价其安全性 ,控制其危险 ,建立防范及应急救援系统是控制工业灾害的重大举措。笔者通过建立数学模型对液化石油气贮罐区的危险性进行定量化评价 ,得出罐区的危险等级以及其现实危险性 ,为控制重大危险源 ,提供了一种有效的方法。     

城市天然气管网预警系统的研究与实现

随着城市天然气管网密度加大,由于天然气管理手段滞后导致的天然气泄漏事故急剧增加。基于GIS技术并结合燃气管网定量风险分析(QRA)模型,提出利用定量风险分析模型实现管网风险预警的方法。结合C#+ArcEngine编程技术,开发城市天然气管网预警系统,实现管网失效率分析、燃气事故扩散模拟、火灾及爆炸模拟、个人风险等值线绘制、社会风险分析等功能,能够进行区域性事故后果预测、个人风险和社会风险计算、安全性评价及应急预案编制等项工作。     

TORAP—a new tool for conducting rapid risk assessment in petroleum refineries and petrochemical industries

The use of a new computer-automated tool TORAP (TOol for Rapid risk Assessment in Petroleum refinery and petrochemical industries) is demonstrated through a rapid and quantitative risk assessment of a typical petroleum refinery. The package has been applied for an appraisal of the risks of accidents (fires, explosions, toxic release) posed by different units of the refinery, and to identify steps to prevent/manage accidents. The studies reveal that TORAP enables a user to quickly focus on the accidents likely to occur, and enables forecasting the nature and impacts of such accidents. This information is directly utilisable in identifying “soft” spots and in taking appropriate remedial measures to prevent or control accidents. The special attributes of TORAP are: (a) a wide range of applications—achieved by incorporating models capable of handling all types of industrial fires and explosions, (b) sophistication—brought about by including state-of-the-art models developed by these authors and others, (c) user-friendliness—achieved by incorporating on-line help, graphics, carefully formatted output, and, above all, an automatic module with which even a lay user can conduct risk assessment. The entire package, especially its automatic module, is supported by an extensive knowledge-base built into the software.     

Semi-quantitative risk assessment of commercial scale supply chain of hydrogen fuel and implications for industry and society

This paper is derived from a study on the safety of bulk transport and storage of hydrogen as a fuel, carried out by the Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL) for the Department for Transport (DfT). The aim of the study was to identify the knowledge and data required to develop fully a risk assessment for a hydrogen delivery and storage infrastructure. The methodology used was to begin to carry out a risk assessment for a representative delivery and storage supply chain, using a risk assessment methodology commensurate with the availability of necessary data. Semi-quantitative risk assessment was carried out through top-down HAZID brainstorming, consequence modelling using commercially available software, and use of a risk matrix.Finally through the risk assessment carried out and relevant literature review, the gaps in hazard identification, consequence modelling and frequency assessment, which should be filled to develop a quantified methodology, were compiled.Using data for current UK LPG consumption, comparisons were made between hydrogen and LPG for mode of failures and number of trips required to supply equivalent energy demand. The implications of using ammonia as a hydrogen carrier (hydrogen is within the ammonia molecule) and regulatory implications on hydrogen fuelling or storage sites are also discussed.     

Fuzzy risk modeling of process operations in the oil and gas refineries

Operating several assets has resulted in more complexity and so occurrence of some major accidents in the refining industries. The process operations risk factors including failure frequency and the consequence components like employees' safety and environment impacts, operation downtime, direct and indirect cost of operations and maintenance, and mean time to repair should be considered in the analysis of these major accidents in any refinery. Considering all of these factors, the risk based maintenance (RBM) as a proper risk assessment methodology minimizes the risk resulting from asset failures. But, one of the main engineering problems in risk modeling of the complex industries like refineries is uncertainty due to the lack of information. This paper proposes a model for the risk of the process operations in the oil and gas refineries. The fuzzy logic system (FLS) was proposed for risk modeling. The merit of using fuzzy model is to overcome the uncertainty of the RBM components. This approach also can be accounted as a benchmark for future failures. A unified risk number would be obtained to show how the criticality of units is. The case study of a gas plant in an oil refinery is performed to illustrate the application of the proposed model and a comparison between the results of both traditional RBM and fuzzy method is made.For the case study, 26 asset failures were identified. The fuzzy risk results show that 3 failures have semi-critical level and other 23 failures are non-critical. In both traditional and fuzzy RBM methods, some condenser failures had the highest risk number and some pumps were prioritized to have the lowest risk level. The unit with unified risk number less than 40 is in the non-critical conditions. Proposed methodology is also applicable to other industries dealing with process operations risks.     

基于人工神经网络的LPG公路运输的风险评价模型及其应用

为使LPG公路运输的风险评价更加客观、合理,遵循区域性、动态性和可量化原则,建立了LPG公路运输的风险评价指标,并将个人风险和社会风险作为评价结果。利用人工神经网络的自组织、自学习和自适应功能,提出基于人工神经网络理论的LPG公路运输的风险评价方法,通过Matlab软件中的神经网络工具箱对评价模型进行训练,并通过实践验证该模型的可行性。结果表明,该方法能较好地克服评价深度、评价指标间复杂关系和评价指标作用模糊的限制,且评价结果直观的反映了评价对象的个人风险和社会风险的风险程度。     

煤矿生产安全风险管理机制的研究与应用

通过对我国煤炭行业及典型煤炭企业的安全及安全管理的现状分析,找出煤炭企业在安全风险管理方面存在的主要问题;利用系统安全科学理论、风险管理理论、个体及群体行为理论、数理统计方法等,以平煤集团为样本,根据安全管理的3E原则,从技术保障、组织保障、文化教育保障等方面全方位地研究煤矿生产安全风险管理模型。通过该模型研究,为煤矿生产安全风险管理提供一套系统的理论体系和思路;在模型研究的基础上,应用先进的计算机技术,开发出网络版的煤矿生产安全风险管理系统,为生产现场提供先进、便捷的安全风险管理手段。     

Introducing the STAMP method in road tunnel safety assessment

After the tremendous accidents in European road tunnels over the past decade, many risk assessment methods have been proposed worldwide, most of them based on Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA). Although QRAs are helpful to address physical aspects and facilities of tunnels, current approaches in the road tunnel field have limitations to model organizational aspects, software behavior and the adaptation of the tunnel system over time. This paper reviews the aforementioned limitations and highlights the need to enhance the safety assessment process of these critical infrastructures with a complementary approach that links the organizational factors to the operational and technical issues, analyze software behavior and models the dynamics of the tunnel system. To achieve this objective, this paper examines the scope for introducing a safety assessment method which is based on the systems thinking paradigm and draws upon the STAMP model. The method proposed is demonstrated through a case study of a tunnel ventilation system and the results show that it has the potential to identify scenarios that encompass both the technical system and the organizational structure. However, since the method does not provide quantitative estimations of risk, it is recommended to be used as a complementary approach to the traditional risk assessments rather than as an alternative.     

安全措施在定量风险评价中量化表征的研究

良好安全措施可以降低重大危险源的事故风险,而在一般的定量风险评价中较少考虑到安全措施对风险结果的影响。本文对一些重要安全措施如何体现在定量风险评价的计算结果中进行了研究。将安全措施分为降低事故频率安全技术措施、降低事故后果的安全技术措施、土地利用规划安全措施和安全管理措施四个方面来分析降低风险结果的作用。并以一个液化石油气罐区为实例应用进行对比分析,实例计算结果表明良好的安全措施能有效地降低罐区的个人风险。