Domino effect in process-industry accidents - An inventory of past events and identification of some patterns

The paper presents an inventory, perhaps the most comprehensive till date, of the major process-industry accidents involving ‘domino effect’. The inventory includes, among other relevant information, the sequence of accidents that had occurred in each domino episode. The information has been analyzed to identify several patterns which may be useful in further work on understanding domino effect and reducing the probability of its occurrence in future. A concept of ‘local domino effect’ has been introduced.     

一起氧气瓶爆炸事故的技术分析

针对一起氧气瓶爆炸事故,进行了详细的实际调查,并以科学理论和数据为依据,进行了多角度的技术分析。     

铜陵有色金属(集团)公司工伤死亡事故统计分析系统数据库的建立、维护及管理

建立工伤死亡事故统计分析数据库,可利用计算机对大量的伤亡事故的原始数据进行处理,得出不同要求的统计分析结果,从中找出伤亡事故发生的一些规律,为今后的安全生产提出应该重视的问题,为采取预防措施提供依据。     

Major accident hazard in bioenergy production

Some recent accidents involving the bioenergy production and feedstock supply chain raised concern on the safety of such technologies. A survey of major accidents related to the production of bioenergy (intended as biomass, bioliquids/biofuels and biogas) was carried out, and a data repository was built, based on past accident reports available in the open literature and in specific databases. Data analysis shows that major accidents are increasing in recent years and their number is growing faster than bioenergy production. The results obtained represent an early warning concerning the major accident hazard of bioenergies, and suggest the importance of risk awareness and safety culture in bioenergy production, in the perspective of a safe and sustainable exploitation of renewable resources.     

PDE accident model from a safety information perspective and its application to Zhangjiakou fire and explosion accident

Accident models can provide theoretical frameworks for determining the causes and mechanisms of accidents, and thus are theoretical bases for accident analysis and prevention. The role of safety information in accident causation is profound. Thus, safety information is an important and essential perspective for developing accident models. This study presents a new accident model developed from a safety information perspective, called the Prediction—Decision—Execution (PDE) accident model. Because the PDE accident model is an emerging accident model that was proposed in 2018, its analysis logic and viability remain to be discussed. Thus, the main contributions of this study include two aspects: (i) detailed explanation of the analysis logic of the PDE accident model, and (ii) case-study examination of the Zhangjiakou fire and explosion accident, a serious accident that occurred in China in 2018, to demonstrate the viability of the PDE accident model. Results show that this is a safety-information-driven accident model that can provide a new and effective methodology for accident analysis and prevention, and safety management.     

LPG leakage and explosion accident analysis based on a new SAA method

The petrochemical industry has inherently high safety risks. On 5^th June 2017, a liquefied petroleum gas tanker in the storage and transportation department of Linyi Jinyu Petrochemical Co., Ltd. leaked during unloading, causing a major explosion and fire. Ten people were killed and nine were injured. To prevent the recurrence of similar accidents, a retrospective accident analysis was conducted using the system accident analysis method known as ‘24Model’. This analysis proved the coupling relationship between accident causes involving multiple organisations and multiple factors. The analysis results show that the five modules of maintenance and design, that is, loading and unloading valves, emergency training, management of subsidiaries and contractors, multi-level supervision, and task arrangement need to be checked from top to bottom by relevant organisations.In order to verify the reliability of 24Model analysis results, three SAA methods, namely STAMP, FRAM, AcciMap, were used to analyse the accident, and results obtained by the four methods were evaluated qualitatively and quantitatively. The results show that the output of 24Model is reliable and has a more understandable framework, which can be used as reference for the development of other linear accident cause models and application of system accident analysis methods to real applications.     

Investigative consequence analysis: A case study research of beirut explosion accident

Around 15:00 GMT on August 4th, an explosion occurred in the warehouse facility storing Ammonium Nitrate (AN) at Beirut port, Lebanon. The explosion resulted in more than 178 fatalities and injured more than 6500 people, and also left an estimated 300,000 people homeless and registered as an equivalent to a 3.3 magnitude earth quake. The accident was considered to be the largest of its kind and the most severe anthropological disaster of the decade, the financial loss the nation was subjected to post the explosion was estimated to be around $ 15 billion as informed by the governor. The storage conditions of ammonium nitrate at Beirut port is not definitively known to anyone, and there is no documentation provided so far from the authorities regarding the same. This work focuses on the investigation & consequence analysis of the explosion using TNT equivalent approach. The overpressure and the impulse obtained from TNT calculations are used in probit models to assess the damages caused on human beings and structures. The results obtained in this investigative approach are then utilized to provide an analytical inference relative to the damage proxy map reported by the advance rapid imaging analysis team from NASA. Also, this work examines the existing standards, fire safety measures and legal regulations for ammonium nitrate facilities in the region. AN explosion during storage like other fire and explosion accidents are definitely preventable owing to the technological advancements and developments to prevent or extinguish controllable fires. The significance of this work relates to the methods for calculation of consequences of explosion that are happening due to the storage of highly hazardous explosive materials in excessive quantities and insists the necessity of incorporating adequate safety measures while storing such reactive and hazardous materials.     

Development of a 3D risk analysis technique for fire disaster and its application on accident simulation of a public site

In this research, we constructed a three-dimensional fire risk analysis technique (3D-FRAT) for common building fires. To demonstrate its effect, the 3D-FRAT employed a self-developed 3D risk-calculating module in combination with the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) software to simulate the Welcome Restaurant accident that happened on February 15, 1995 in Taichung City, Taiwan. This study only focuses on thermal radiation and provide a preliminary method to quantify a fire risk. Different firefighting equipment that comply with the related building and fire-preventive regulations have been used in the simulations to test their mitigating effectiveness on the accident. The results were shown by animation, 3D pictures, and sliced pictures to facilitate the researchers’ understanding of human hazards caused by thermal radiation or smoke in a specific fire accident. The minimal personnel escaping times for different hazardous factors were estimated; various firefighting designs that can reduce loss of human life and property were also perused. According to the simulation results, the individual risk values in Welcome Restaurant were between 3.108 × 10⁻⁹ to 2.719 × 10⁻⁵ (deaths/year). It is foreseeable that the 3D-FRAT can become a useful tool for related organizations to choose better fire-resistant buildings or fire-fighting equipment in the future.     

基于贝叶斯网络的一种事故分析模型

贝叶斯网络被认为是人工智能研究中不确定性知识表示和推理的重要工具。当前在系统安全领域中已开始运用贝叶斯网络技术进行故障诊断分析，然而故障只是诱发事故的因素之一，无法系统的评价事故背后的隐患，对事故后果的预测也甚少涉及。笔者将贝叶斯网络作为一种事故分析手段，在事故致因理论的基础上提出了一种基于危险因素-事故-事故危害的三层贝叶斯网络拓扑模型；阐述了网络模型层次间的因果关联关系、各层次的构成、节点的描述方法以及网络模型的构建方法；最后通过一个天然气球罐的分析案例验证了该模型分析方法的可行性和有效性。     

Mitigation performance of the process protection system on the accident consequences of H2S-containing natural gas release and explosion

Toxic loads and explosion overpressure loads pose grave threats to the offshore oil and gas industry. Many safety measures are adopted to prevent and mitigate the adverse impacts caused by toxic loads and explosion overpressure loads. As a general safety barrier, the process protection system has been widely used but rarely evaluated. In order to assess the barrier ability, the mitigation performance of the process protection system is concerned in this study. Firstly, several chain accidents of H₂S-containing natural gas leakage and explosion are simulated by varying the response time of the process protection system with CFD code FLACS. Qualitative assessment is conducted based on the variation of the dangerous load profiles. Furthermore, the quantitative assessment of the mitigation performance is accomplished by considering its ability in reducing the probability of fatality. Emergency evacuation and no emergency evacuation are considered respectively in the quantitative assessment. The results prove that the process protection system takes effect on mitigating the toxic impact and explosion overpressure impact. The results also demonstrate that although the emergency evacuation may result in a severer explosion load to the operator, the process protection system can mitigate the adverse impacts regardless of whether the emergency evacuation is conducted or not.     

道路交通事故发展趋势分析与预测

根据福建省2000 -2010年交通事故相关指标,采用统计图表分析法进行交通事故发展趋势分析与安全水平比较研究,结果表明交通事故各项绝对指标总体呈下降趋势,但从万车死亡率、受伤人数与死亡人数比及交通事故死亡人数占各类事故死亡人数比重等相对指标看,交通安全总体水平偏低,交通事故后果比较严重.对交通事故死亡人数与GDP、机动车保有量、公路通车里程、人口数四项影响因素进行了多元线性回归分析,分析得出四个影响因素总体对交通事故死亡人数的线性影响是显著的,采取向后筛选策略线性回归分析得出,死亡人数与GDP的线性关系是显著的,根据回归结果建立了交通事故的预测模型.     

Risk analysis of a cross-regional toxic chemical disaster by using the integrated mesoscale and microscale consequence analysis model

The rapidly growing capacity and scale of the world's petrochemical industries have forced many plants to have an even larger amount of hazardous substances. Once a serious leak occurs, the outcome of the effect zone could be very large or even uncontrollable just like the Bhopal disaster. In order to assess the risk of a cross-regional damage, this study aims to develop a model that can combine the benefits of both CFD model of the microscale simulation and the Gaussian dispersion model of the mesoscale simulation.The developed integrated model is employed on a toxic chemical tank leak accident of a process plant within an industrial park in order to explore the consequences and the risk of the toxic gas dispersion on three different scopes; one is the accident site, the second is the long-distance transmission route of the mesoscale area and the third is a target city. According to the simulation's results, it is obvious that the complexity of the structure surrounding the leaking tank will eventually affect the maximum ground concentration, the cloud shapes and cloud dilution rate, while the released gas is under dispersion. On the other hand, since the simple Gaussian dispersion model doesn't consider the above impacts, its calculation results will have many differences as compared to the realistic situation. This integrated model can be used as a tool for estimating the risk on a microscale or mesoscale areas and it can produce better results when an environmental impact analysis is required for a larger hazardous chemical process.     

Comparison of techniques for accident scenario analysis in hazardous systems

In this paper, three accident scenario analysis techniques are presented and compared regarding their efficiency vs. the demanded resources. The complexity of modern industrial systems has prompted the development of accident analysis techniques that should thoroughly investigate accidents. The idea of criteria classification to fulfill this requirement has been proposed by other researchers and is examined here too. The comparison is done through the application of Event Tree analysis, Fault Tree analysis and Petri Nets technique—two relatively simple and a more demanding methodology—on the same hazardous chemical facility in view of analyzing an accident scenario of a hazardous transfer procedure. Accident scenario analysis techniques are essential not only in learning lessons from unfortunate events in the chemical industry but also in preventing the occurrence of such events in the future and in communicating risk more efficiently.     

北京市火灾事故特征的统计分析

为全面了解北京市火灾事故的基本情况,使用聚类分析和描述性统计对火灾事故统计数据进行了分析。结果显示,北京火灾事故存在一定的空间分布特征,中南部较其他区域火灾风险较高。火灾事故的时间趋势显示,起火次数、伤亡人数有降低趋势,直接经济损失有上升趋势。不同起火原因引起的火灾事故起数和直接经济损失中,电气和生活用火不慎引起的火灾事故占主要部分。研究对于认识北京火灾事故的特征、发展趋势和有重点的进行火灾事故预防有重要意义。     

对一起热水锅炉爆管事故的分析

通过对一起锅炉爆管事故的现场检查 ,详细地分析了爆管的原因 ,并提出了处理意见     

关于一起过电压事故的调查分析

通过一起过电压事故的调查分析,找出了发生事故的主要原因,并提出了整改措施及应吸取的经验教训。     

The indirect involvement of buses in traffic accident processes

The involvement of buses in accidents usually is assessed implicitly on the basis of the direct involvement of the bus in the collision or in injury production. This paper deals with the scope and forms of indirect involvement of buses (as a sight obstruction, for example). Accidents were selected by identifying the presence of the term ‘bus’ or synonyms in the text parts of complete police reports (testimonies, statements by the persons involved, etc.) available in electronic form, then analysed in detail. Direct or indirect involvement of a bus is found in 3.6% of traffic injury accidents reported by the police in the community studied (direct involvement: 1.4%; indirect involvement: 2.2%). The different forms of indirect involvement are then described, and some possibilities of preventive measures are discussed.     

某市辖区建筑施工死亡事故统计分析及对策

以某市安监局2001-2009年之间查处的工矿商贸类死亡事故统计数据为基础,根据系统工程的原理,应用数理统计的方法,用统计图显示出该市的安全生产状况;并着重对建筑施工死亡事故的事故类型、事故原因、施工工程承包形式以及死亡人员的用工形式等进行详细的统计分析,展现出该市建筑行业的安全状况。可以看出,该市近几年安全生产形势严峻,死亡事故数及死亡人数都呈上升趋势。建筑行业传统的＂五大伤害＂仍然是该市建筑施工死亡事故的主要类别,建筑施工项目分包以及农民工的安全管理势在必行。最后分析该市建筑施工安全生产中存在的主要问题,并从政府宏观监管和企业管理角度对该市的建筑施工安全管理提出相应对策和建议。