Software tools to support incident reporting in safety-critical systems

Incident reporting systems are playing an increasingly important role in the development and maintenance of safety-critical applications. The perceived success of the FAA's Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) and the FDA's MedWatch has led to the establishment of similar national and international schemes. These enable individuals and groups to report their safety concerns in a confidential or anonymous manner. Unfortunately, many of these systems are becoming victims of their own success. The ASRS and MedWatch have both now received over 500,000 submissions. In consequence, the administrators of incident reporting systems increasingly rely upon software tools to support the administration of their systems. In the past, these systems have relied upon ad hoc applications of conventional database technology. However, there are several reasons why this technology is inadequate for many large-scale reporting schemes. In particular, the problems of query formation often result in poor precision and recall. This, in turn, has profound implications for safety-critical applications. Users may fail to identify similar incidents within national or international collections. These ad hoc approaches also neglect the opportunities provided by recent developments in computer assisted interviewing and in the monitoring of retrieval activities to build models of user behavior. These techniques offer a number of potential benefits. For instance, it is possible to automatically detect potential biases in the way that investigators analyze particular incidents.     

The use and abuse of scientific studies

In response to Evelyn Pluhar'sWho Can Be Morally Obligated to Be a Vegetarian? in this journal issue, the author has read all of Pluhar's citations for the accuracy of her claims and had these read by an independent nutritionist. Detailed analysis of Pluhar's argument shows that she attempts to make her case by consistent misappropriation of the findings and conclusions of the studies she cites. Pluhar makes sweeping generalizations from scanty data, ignores causal explanations given by scientists, equates hypothesis with fact, draws false cause conclusions from studies, and in one case claims a conclusion opposite of what the scientist published. Such poor reasoning cannot be the basis of an argument for moral vegetarianism. A broader search of the literature and attention to reviews and textbooks in nutrition shows that each of Pluhar's claims is suspect or incorrect. Pluhar has not undermined my central claims: even if animals have certain rights and well-planned vegetarian diets are safe in complex industrialized societies, these diets cannot be so regarded if the presuppositions of high levels of wealth, education, and medical care do not exist; and, women, children, the aged and some ill persons are at greater risk on restrictive vegan diets. Thus, any duty of moral vegetarianism is not categorical but provisional in nature.     

天然气钻井井口安全距离研究分析

分析天然气钻井井场可能发生的事故类型及事故的破坏程度,选择适合的事故后果模型,对天然气井井喷失控后可能发生的蒸气云爆炸及硫化氢扩散的后果进行量化分析,根据超压-冲量准则、热剂量准则和硫化氢扩散行为规律,计算出爆炸波、爆炸火球及硫化氢扩散的危害范围。笔者建立了天然气钻井井口安全距离的计算模型,并提出一种确定安全距离的方法。通过计算给出不同无阻流量、不同硫化氢体积含量的20种条件下的天然气钻井井口安全距离,并应用该模型对某含硫气井井口安全距离进行了计算。实例表明,该方法具备实用性,值得在天然气井选址规划中推广和使用。     

Blast wave clearing behavior for positive and negative phases

The purpose of the research was to improve prediction of response of buildings to blast waves by including the negative phase and considering clearing of both positive and negative phases. Commonly used structural design practices, which trace their origins to military design manuals, often ignore the negative phase as well as positive phase clearing. For high explosive threats, this approach is conservative in most circumstances. However, negative phase clearing had not previously been studied for blast waves, and the implications for structural response had not been evaluated. This paper presents results of modeling negative phase blast clearing behavior for a typical blast wave and discusses the differences from positive phase clearing. The implications of including positive and negative phase clearing in building blast damage analysis are also investigated through single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) analyses.Blast waves from explosion sources like a vapor cloud explosion (VCE), pressure vessel burst or high explosive exhibit both positive and negative phases, and the relative magnitude of the positive and negative phases varies among explosion sources and the specific circumstances of each source. A fully reflected blast wave is produced if an incident blast wave were to strike an infinitely tall and wide wall in a normal orientation. Both the positive and negative phases of the blast wave are enhanced by the reflection process. However, when an incident blast wave strikes a wall of finite size in a normal orientation, rarefaction waves are created at the edges of the wall, and the rarefactions sweep down from the roof and inward from sides. The rarefaction waves result in a clearing effect for both the positive and negative phases.Clearing relieves some of the applied blast load on the reflected wall for the positive phase. However, this is not always the case for the negative phase. As shown by the results presented in this paper, clearing may either relieve or enhance the applied negative phase blast load, depending on the duration of the blast wave and the wall dimensions.The impact of negative phase clearing on structural response for generic building components was also investigated. Nonlinear SDOF methods were used to characterize response in terms of peak positive and negative displacements. It was found that the influence of the negative phase is significant and the peak structural response can occur during negative (outward) displacement.     

基于粗糙集理论的危险品运输风险分析

为解决危险品风险分析问题,利用粗糙集理论在处理不确定、不精确问题上的优势,提出基于粗糙集理论的危险品运输风险分析方法。首先,建立决策表,经化简后获得各属性的重要度,识别出影响危险品运输的主要因素与次要因素,以及主次因素所占比例;然后,利用区分函数对决策表进行约简,得出决策表的属性约简;最后,利用决策表的决策规则对原始数据进行推导,得出危险品运输事故的一般规律。结果表明,影响危险品运输事故类型的最重要因素是危险品的类型,所占比重为42.86%,其次是危险品运输的道路状况与危险品运输车辆状况,各占28.57%。在道路状况欠佳且车辆状况良好的前提下,腐蚀品发生危险品事故的严重程度要依次高于毒害品与压缩气体和液化气体。     

三维点云基础上排土场垮塌影响范围研究

高台阶排土场下游常分布有居民区、厂房等,一旦垮塌,后果严重,因此完善的防治与应急准备工作十分关键,而排土场垮塌影响范围的预测是这些工作的重要前提依据。为提升高台阶排土场垮塌影响范围的预测准确性,需要获取准确的地形边界基础数据。通过利用三维激光扫描仪对新建排土场及其下游地形精细扫描,对获取的三维点云数据去噪、拼接、建模等处理,生成精度更高的数字高程模型与三维实体模型。在此基础上,结合新建高台阶排土场地质勘查与设计资料,建立颗粒离散元数值模型,利用PFC3D计算高台阶排土场垮塌影响范围,并与经验公式法计算结果对比分析,结果表明排土场颗粒离散元数值模型精度符合要求,可快速、准确地计算影响范围,从而为相关部门提供科学决策依据。     

Detonations and vapor cloud explosions: Why it matters

The methods used to evaluate the consequences of a vapor cloud explosion assume deflagrations within congested process pipework regions and consequently a significant effort has been invested in developing models to estimate the severity of these deflagrations. Models range from the simpler screening approaches to detailed Computational Fluid Dynamics. There is clear evidence from large scale experiments and incidents that transition from deflagration to detonation is credible and has occurred and it is the contention of this paper that deflagration is only the first stage in many major vapor cloud explosions and that detonation is readily foreseeable. Why does this matter? The methods currently used in the design and location of buildings on and around process sites are based on an incomplete picture of vapor cloud explosions. Whilst this might not have a significant effect in some cases, it is shown that there is the potential to significantly underestimate the explosion hazard. This will result in occupied buildings either being placed in the wrong location or under-designed for the explosion threat, increasing the risks to personnel on these sites.     

Deflagration to detonation transition in a vapour cloud explosion in open but congested space: Large scale test

The paper reviews large scale experiments with various fuels in air where successful deflagration to detonation transition (DDT) took place. This includes a recent experiment disclosed in the Buncefield R&D program, where DDT developed in the propane/air mixture. The DDT occurred in branches of deciduous trees in a premixed stagnant mixture. An internal R&D investigation programme was initiated to better understand the phenomena. A large scale experiment in an open space with ethane air mixture is presented in the paper. The premixed mixture was ignited at the edge of the congested three-dimensional rigs which consisted of vertical and horizontal pipes. After ignition, the flame accelerated in the congestion and transitioned to detonation at the end of congestion. Stable detonation propagated through the remaining open and uncongested space.The flame acceleration process leading to DDT is scale dependent. It also depends on many parameters leading to a large investigation array and, significant cost. However, such R&D efforts aimed toward a safer plant design, i.e. the prevention of occurrence of a major accident, are a small fraction of a real accident cost.     

基于云平台的重庆环境监察移动执法系统集成研究

通过分析重庆市环境监察现场执法业务应用需求,结合现有的信息化现状及信息技术发展趋势,设计了“一个平台、一个中心、两个体系”的系统总体架构,提出了“移动端防控、链路安全、内网和服务器防护”的网络传输和信息安全系统设计,采用VPN专网,有效解决了符合三级等保安全的移动设备的传输网络,采用虚拟化的云服务平台,研发了市－区两级的重庆市环境监察移动执法系统,并在市局、涪陵和九龙坡区试点应用,取得了很好的应用效果。     

Simulation of scenario characteristics of LPG tank explosion accident and its contribution to emergency planning: A case study

Leakage and explosion of hazardous chemicals during road transportation can cause serious building damage and casualties, and adoption of highly-efficient emergency rescue measures plays a critical role in reducing accidental hazards. Considering a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) transport tanker explosion accident that occurred in Wenling, Zhejiang Province, China on June 13, 2020 as example, this study proposes a risk assessment framework. This framework recreates the leakage and explosion of the accident process using FLACS v10.9, suggests plans for evacuation, describes the rescue areas of different levels, and explores the influence of environmental factors on the evacuation and rescue areas. The results show that simulated and predicted distributions of fuel vapour cloud concentration and explosion overpressure can provide a reference basis for rapid rescue activities; the characterization of the dynamic effects of wind speed, wind direction, and temperature with respect to the evacuation and rescue areas can be used as theoretical support for on-site adjustment of rescue forces. The role of obstacles can prevent the expansion of the evacuation areas under low wind-speed conditions, and the presence of highly congested obstacles determines the level of the rescue area. The results obtained are important for the risk analysis and the development of emergency rescue measures in case of explosion accidents associated with transportation of hazardous chemicals on high-hazard and high-sensitive road sections.