Research on three-dimensional visualization system of Natech events triggered domino accidents in oil-gas depots

Natech events and domino accidents happen worldwide and usually lead to severe consequences, especially in hazardous areas such as Oil-Gas depots. With the continuous development of the Oil-Gas industry and information technology, it is essential to realize the three-dimensional management and monitoring of hazardous substances. To evaluate the consequences caused by Natech events triggered domino accidents (accident chain), a matrix loop method was proposed to calculate the probability and evolution path of the accident chain. The actual layout and the real-time data of the Oil-Gas depot are input into the evaluation method in matrices, thus making the results reliable and updated. Besides, a B/S architecture system is developed to present the evaluation consequences of the proposed method. The three-dimensional visualization effects of natural disasters, technological accidents and the dynamic propagation process of the accident chain are also realized in the system to enhance the user's experience. A system application regarding lightning-triggered domino accidents was carried out to demonstrate the feasibility and rapidity of the proposed evaluation method and perform the system's operation process and visualization effects. The application results show that the system can provide effective decision-making assistance to safety management workers before the accident and guidance for emergency rescue operations during the accident.     

Risk analysis in Natech events: State of the art

Natech events (Natural Hazard Triggering Technological Disasters) are industrial accidents caused by natural events such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, and so on. In recent decades, the probability of these events occurring has increased, activating the interest of researchers in the study of new methods of risk analysis to prevent and mitigate possible damage to people, the environment, and processing facilities. On the other hand, the concept of multi-hazard is summarized in the combination of two or more threat factors manifested in isolated, simultaneous manner, or by chain reaction, to produce a trigger event of a disaster, where hazardous events can be one or more natural events. Considering that, it is essential to know the progress in risk analysis for Natech events, to identify the gaps for future research. Therefore, in this paper, a systematic review of the Natech events literature with single and multi-hazard approaches was developed. The review was conducted by searching the Science Direct, Web of Science, and Scopus databases for scientific documents. Subsequently, the words Natech and Multi-hazard were taken as keywords, and 208 results were obtained. Then, some management documents were consulted in international organizations to compare academic literature and industrial risk management. In conclusion, the risk analysis methods revised are specific to a particular hazard and apply mainly to earthquakes, floods, and lightning. Regarding a multi-hazard approach, the methods focus on risk mitigation in urban areas without taking into account Natech risk. In the case of industrial risk assessment, some methodologies were found that briefly consider Natech risk in risk assessment processes in industry.     

RAPID-N: Rapid natech risk assessment and mapping framework

Natech accidents at industrial plants are an emerging risk with possibly serious consequences. For the mitigation of natech risk, authorities need to identify natech prone areas in a systematic manner. In order to facilitate probabilistic natech risk mapping, a unified methodology was developed that is based on the estimation of on-site natural hazard parameters, determination of damage probabilities of plant units, and assessment of probability and severity of possibly triggered natech events. The methodology was implemented as an on-line, extensible risk assessment and mapping software framework called RAPID-N, which allows rapid local and regional natech risk assessment and mapping with minimal data input. RAPID-N features an innovative data estimation framework to complete missing input data, such as on-site natural hazard parameters and plant unit characteristics. The framework is also used for damage assessment and natech consequence analysis, and allows easy modification of input parameters, dynamic generation of consequence models according to data availability, and extension of models by adding new equations or substituting existing ones with alternatives. Results are presented as summary reports and interactive risk maps, which can be used for land-use and emergency planning purposes by using scenario hazards, or for rapid natech consequence assessment following actual disasters. As proof of concept, the framework provides a custom implementation of the U.S. EPA's RMP Guidance for Offsite Consequence Analysis methodology to perform natech consequence analysis and includes comprehensive data for earthquakes. It is readily extendible to other natural hazards and more comprehensive risk assessment methods.     

多灾种概念辨析及灾害事故关系研究综述

随着人类社会的不断发展,各种各样的突发事件对人类的生产生活环境造成了重大影响,为了更好地应对突发事件,需要充分考虑和深入分析突发事件所带来的各种威胁。然而,目前对于灾害事故等多灾种之间的相互关系,仍存在描述众多,概念混淆的问题。在广泛调研的基础上,梳理、归纳和补充灾害事故间关系现有的概念和定义,以及相关名词的运用场景,将灾害事故等多灾种情形归纳为灾害事故相互增强、灾害事故互斥削弱、灾害事故互不影响3大类,Natech事件、灾害链、多米诺效应、人为激发灾害、灾害事故集等10小类,并详细阐述其含义,并进一步举出对应的案例;同时,在整理多灾种风险分析的研究现状基础上,对未来多灾种风险分析的研究提出展望。     

基于事故案例的Natech事件演化模式及风险分析*

为探究非巨灾型Natech事件演化模式并降低发生风险,基于164个事故案例,归纳出6种典型演化路径,构建非巨灾型Natech事件演化模式分析框架,并基于突发事件关联网络,分析影响Natech事件风险的水平关键节点及潜在发生路径。结果表明:暴雨灾害是对全局影响力最强的节点,与人为异动的协同作用最显著;电力事故Natech链路径较长;水污染事故是较容易被自然灾害或首发事故触发的事件。     

Scenario deduction of Natech accident based on dynamic Bayesian network: A case study of landslide accident in a liquor storage tank area in Guizhou Province,China

Industrial technical accidents caused by natural disasters are defined as Natech accidents, such as earthquakes and landslides, which can cause tremendous damage to industrial storage tanks, and lead to accidental leakage and even serious fire and explosion accidents. In this study, a landslide-induced storage tank accident model under earthquake disasters was proposed, and the relationship between landslide mass impact and target impact resistance was taken into account. Also, tank failure and the formation of the pool fire were considered to be the consequences of the Natech accident. Through scenario deduction, the dynamic process of landslide Natech was transformed qualitatively into a disaster chain network diagram composed of a scenario state, a disaster-causing factor and emergency management. The Bayesian network was used to learn and deduce the parameters of the network diagram, and in this process, the prior probability and conditional probability of nodes were obtained primarily by Monte Carlo simulation, and by an improved expert scoring method based on the fuzzy set theory. Through visualization software, the sensitivity analysis of landslide Natech was achieved. Finally, a case study of a liquor storage tank area in Guizhou Province, China was carried out, and the results show that a large amount of hazardous material leakage caused by buckling is key to the formation of pool fire accidents, and several prevention measures for earthquake-induced landslide Natech was proposed according to the sensitivity analysis.     

Development of generic bow-tie diagrams of accidental scenarios triggered by flooding of industrial facilities (Natech)

Interactions between natural events and industrial installations may lead to dangerous phenomena. According to bibliographical research, the industrial sector is often unprepared for these joint natural and technological or Natech events mainly because of the lack of guidelines on how to apply Natech regulations and the lack of information on the dynamics of Natechs. In order to fill the gaps and provide guidance on Natech risk assessment to operators, a systematic risk analysis methodology was developed and resulted firstly in proposing general reference bow-ties that reconfigure accidental scenarios triggered by flood events. The validation of these scenarios was made in the surface treatment sector. Building on these bow-ties, the risk analysis methodology will be completed and a checklist simple to use, along with a list proposing preventive and protective measures, to be used by operators in order to decrease the vulnerability of their industrial facilities to technological accidents triggered by floods will be developed in future work.     

Natech guide words: A new approach to assess and manage natech risk to ensure business continuity

The risk posed by natural hazards to the technological systems is known as Natech risk. It is different from the more widely known and studied risk posed by such sites to the environment and society. Though currently, available risk assessment techniques recognize Natech, the specific qualitative technique for Natech risk assessment and reduction has not yet been developed. After analyzing past data of Natech accidents, relevant guide words have been suggested in this study. These guide words will help anticipate Natech risk and visualize the Natech scenario. Once the Natech risk is identified, corresponding risk reduction measures can be taken to avoid possible Natech accidents and consequences.     

Methodology for Natech coupling risk assessment using correlative multi-criteria decision-making method

When a natural disaster occurs, it may damage multiple industrial facilities in a certain area at the same time, and the resulting Natech events may have an impact on the surrounding industrial facilities, generating coupling risk. In this study, the assessment of Natech events coupling risk is conducted using the method of correlated multi-criteria decision-making, and the knowledge of fuzzy measures is introduced to solve the uncertainty problem in Natech coupling risk. Natech Coupling Risk Index is constructed to involve physical and functional facilities. The concept of equivalent population is proposed to compare the risks generated by physical facilities and functional facilities. And economic indicators are added to calculate the comprehensive risk value. The purpose of this contribution is to enable local government managers to use their expertise and resources and the existing risk assessment of the plants themselves and rely on the scoring of experts limitedly to quickly and easily identify potential high Natech risk areas. In the calculation process of coupling risk, the government can also take the lead to promote information communication between different plants and other industrial subjects. The proposed method was applied in a realistic chemical industry area in Guangzhou, China and in a hypothetical town. The result shows that the physical risk may be transferred to the population and economy through the coupling between industrial facilities and the functional link between functional facilities and population and economy.     

Historical analysis of U.S. onshore hazardous liquid pipeline accidents triggered by natural hazards

Incidents at U.S. onshore hazardous liquid pipeline systems were analyzed with an emphasis on natural hazards. Incidents triggered by natural hazards (natechs) were identified by keyword-based data mining and expert review supplemented by various data sources. The analysis covered about 7000 incidents in 1986–2012, 3800 of which were regarded as significant based on their consequences. 5.5% of all and 6.2% of the significant incidents were found to be natechs that resulted in a total hazardous substance release of 317,700 bbl. Although there is no trend in the long-term yearly occurrence of significant natechs, importance is found to be increasing due to the overall decreasing trend of the incidents. Meteorological hazards triggered 36% of the significant natechs, followed by geological and climatic hazards with 26% and 24%. While they occurred less frequently, hydrological hazards caused the highest amount of release which is about 102,000 bbl. The total economic cost of significant natechs was 597 million USD, corresponding to about 18% of all incident costs in the same period. More than 50% of this cost was due to meteorological hazards, mainly tropical cyclones. Natech vulnerabilities of the system parts vary notably with respect to natural hazard types. For some natural hazards damage is limited possibly due to implemented protection measures. The geographical distribution of the natechs indicated that they occurred more in some states, such as Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. About 50% of the releases was to the ground, followed by water bodies with 28%. Significant consequences to human health were not observed although more than 20% of the incidents resulted in fires. In general, the study indicated that natural hazards are a non-negligible threat to the onshore hazardous liquid pipeline network in the U.S. It also highlighted problems such as underreporting of natural hazards as incident causes, data completeness, and explicit data limitations.     

Quantitative risk assessment of domino effect in Natech scenarios triggered by lightning

Lightning strike is the natural event more frequency causing Natech accidents involving atmospheric storage tanks. Despite the resulting fires have usually limited severity and only local effects, domino effect may cause the escalation of these primary events, possibly affecting nearby pressurized storages and process equipment, thus resulting in relevant increase in the potential area impacted. A methodology was developed for the quantitative assessment of risk due to domino effects caused by Natech accidents triggered by lightning. A comprehensive procedure was obtained, tailoring lightning risk assessment to include probabilistic models for domino escalation based on probit approach and combinatorial analysis. The methodology was applied to a case-study to evidence the shift in risk figures due to domino effect and the credibility of the secondary domino scenarios. The results of the case-study show that an increase up to two orders of magnitude with respect to risk calculated for conventional scenarios is possible when considering lightning-induced Natech primary scenarios and their escalation.     

基于双重预防机制优化企业安全管理研究

为优化企业安全管理,提高安全管理效率,减少事故的发生和降低事故造成后果的严重程度,本文根据双重预防机制的要求和对企业安全管理的研究,采用危险源辨识、事故因果连锁论、安全风险分级和层次分析等方法,通过对可能导致事故发生的各阶段子事件进行分析,研究系统性的危险源辨识、辨析临界事故发生的紧急情况事件、各事件安全风险分级标准和安全管理资源分配等问题。结果表明:企业安全管理体系的优化理论可结合企业实际情况,形成企业自查自改自治的闭环安全管理体系,提高企业对风险管控的效果;并且优化后的安全管理方法对管理资源的利用更为科学,可提高企业安全管理工作的效率。     

Smart chemical industry parks in China: Current status,challenges, and pathways for future sustainable development

The chemical industry has been pivotal to the rapid economic expansion and high standards of living in China. As an important carrier of the chemical industry, China has designated as many as 723 chemical industrial parks (CIPs). Unfortunately, safety concerns have become an obstacle to the sustainability of China's CIPs. Ever since the two devastating hazardous chemical accidents, namely “Tianjin Port 8·12 Explosion” and “Jiangsu 3·21 Explosion,” which occurred in 2015 and 2019 respectively, China has prioritized the safety of CIPs. The smart chemical industrial parks (SCIPs) are considered the optimal strategies toward the goal of sustainable development in China's CIPs. However, there has been a lack of research and subsequent discussion on the role of SCIPs in the forthcoming years. The period between 2020 and 2025 is considered a crucial period for the future development of CIPs and SCIPs in China mainly because the country has released a series of important government documents and national standards (such as “Fourteenth Five-Year (2020–2025) Plan for Hazardous Chemical Safety” and “Guidelines of SCIPs construction”) to promote hazardous chemical safety. With the aim of analyzing the future sustainable development for the construction of SCIPs in China, this paper proposes a systematic methodology in order to conduct an integrated and in-depth review on the standardization construction status (framework with Chinese characteristics, key events, spatial features, and national pilots), future tasks, problems, and sustainable development pathways of China's SCIPs. The method is implemented in accordance with the current scenarios of hazardous chemical safety in China and the latest government documents, regulations, and standards. Furthermore, this study provides basic data and a basis for future studies associated with the safety and sustainability of the SCIPs construction and chemical industry, both within China and in other countries.     

Resilience assessment of chemical industrial areas during Natech-related cascading multi-hazards

In chemical industrial areas, technological accidents triggered by natural events (Natech events) may escalate. Complex cascading multi-hazard scenarios with high uncertainties may be caused. Resilience is an essential property of a system to withstand and recover from disruptive events. The present study focuses on the change of the resilience level due to (possible) interactions between cascading hazards, chemical installations and safety barriers during the dynamic evolution of fire escalations triggered by a natural hazard (certain cascading multi-hazard scenarios). A quantitative resilience assessment method is developed to this end. The state transition of a system facing accidents in the context of resilience is explored. Moreover, the uncertainties accompanying an accident evolution are quantified using a Dynamic Bayesian Network, allowing a detailed analysis of the system performance in different time steps. System resilience is measured as a time-dependent function with respect to the change of system performance. The applicability of the proposed methodology is demonstrated by a case study, and the effects of different configurations of safety barriers on improving resilience are discussed. The results are valuable to support disaster prevention within chemical industrial areas.     

“一带一路”沿线自然灾害分布特征研究

“一带一路”是促进各国经济、社会高速发展的跨时代宏伟构想,更是加强国际交流合作的重要契机。“一带一路”战略涉及范围达65个国家,其自然灾害造成的危害和经济损失是强烈和致命的。对“一带一路”所经区域的自然灾害及其分布特征的研究,显示全球范围内自然灾害呈现出逐年上升、以洪涝和地震灾害最为显著的趋势;东亚地区的地震和洪涝灾害,中亚、西亚地区的干旱灾害,中东欧地区的高温及洪涝灾害都显示出地区性的主要灾害影响特征;灾害分布特征的研究对“一带一路”所经地带的自然灾害防御具有重要意义,也对促成“一带一路”经济带的安全展开有着学术性的意义。     

Trends in accidents,disasters and risk sources in Europe

Most of the adverse impacts on man and/or the environment result from routine human activities such as the process industry, electricity generation and use, transport and agriculture (hazards, i.e. sources of risk). Apart from such essentially technological hazards, possibly resulting in “accidents”, human health and the environment can also be affected by natural hazards, possibly resulting in “disasters”, such as earthquakes or floods. This paper examines current trends in the risk sources and occurrences of four classes of such types of undesired events, entailing largely involuntary risk (e.g. neither car-driving nor smoking):

• •major accidents at fixed installations in the process industry,
• •incidents/accidents at nuclear installations,
• •marine transport and offshore installation accidents,
• •disasters caused by natural hazards and their potential exacerbation by human activities.

It aims to provide an integrated overview of such events in Europe (≡ 15 EU Member States, 4 EFTA, 13 PHARE, 7 TACIS and 5 other South and South Eastern European countries) during the last decade, estimating and interpreting trends in the number of risk sources and accidental events. For each type of event, specific “accident” definitions are given, illustrating the differences in the perception of the respective risk.     

钻探工程施工中危险源辨识、风险评价及其控制

对钻探工程施工中存在的危险、危害因素进行了辨识和分析,采用预先危险性分析方法及安全因素影响风险评价方法对施工过程中危险源的危险等级和安全因素影响等进行了分析和评价,针对重大危险源采用了安全技术和安全管理控制措施。首先对能量危害物质、失控(包括生产、控制、安全装置和辅助设施等故障及人员失误)、管理缺陷及客观因素进行危险源辨识;第二,评价危险源危害因素主次;第三,采用安全技术和安全管理措施有效地对车辆伤害、登高作业、防雷安全、用电安全、机械安全及预防自然灾害(火灾)等重大危险源进行控制。通过实践表明,福建省121地质大队采用该方法对钻探工程项目的危险源进行了有效地控制,实现了钻探安全生产。     

房采采空区失稳危险性评价

由房采采空区失稳引发的灾害已成为危害矿山及社会安全的重要因素之一。为了对房采采空区失稳进行危险性评价,在分析影响房采采空区失稳危险状态的自然地质条件因素与指数W1和开采技术条件因素与指数W2的基础上,采用综合指数法对房采采空区危险源进行分级研究,确定房采采空区失稳危险状态等级评定的综合指数W。将房采采空区失稳危险源分为4级,即Ⅰ级危险源(特大危险性,W≥0.8);Ⅱ级危险源(重大危险性,0.6≤W<0.8);Ⅲ级危险源(较大危险性,0.3≤W<0.6)和Ⅳ级危险源(一般危险性,W<0.3)。结合实例,对陕西某矿区房采采空区失稳危险性进行分级,并提出预防性措施。     

Application of domino effect quantitative risk assessment to an extended industrial area

Escalation of primary accidental scenarios triggering a “domino effect” have caused extremely severe accidental events in the chemical and process industry. The identification of possible escalation events is required in the safety assessment of sites where relevant quantities of hazardous substances are stored or handled. In the European Union, “Seveso-II” Directive requires the assessment of on-site and off-site possible escalation scenarios in sites falling under the obligations of the Directive. In the present study, a methodology developed for the quantitative assessment of risk due to domino effect was applied to the analysis of an extended industrial area. Recently developed equipment damage probability models were applied for the identification of the final scenarios and for escalation probability assessment. The domino package of the Aripar-GIS software was used for risk recomposition. The results evidence that quantitative risk assessment of escalation hazard is of fundamental importance in order to identify critical equipment and to address prevention and protection actions.     

基于Logistic回归模型的呼伦贝尔草原火险预测研究

目前国内外还没有对不同火险条件下草原火险时空发生概率的研究,而这方面研究对草原火灾管理对策和防火救助应急预案的制定具有重要意义.根据呼伦贝尔草原火灾统计月报表和相关气象、社会经济资料,利用Logistic回归模型建立草原火险预测模型,对草原火险进行了空间上的预测.结果表明,日平均风速、日降水量对草原火险影响较大. 以2005年所有火灾案例对草原火险预测模型进行检验,研究表明,该预测方法具有较高的可靠性,可为火灾管理和减灾决策的制定提供指导.