Allometric scaling and accidents at work

Allometry is the knowledge concerning relations between the features of some beings, like animals, or cities. For example, the daily energy rate is proportional to a mass of mammals rise of 3/4. This way of thinking has spread quickly from biology to many areas of research concerned with sociotechnical systems. It was revealed that the number of innovations, patents or heavy crimes rises as social interaction increases in a bigger city, while other urban indexes such as suicides decrease with social interaction. Enterprise is also a sociotechnical system, where social interaction and accidents at work take place. Therefore, do these interactions increase the number of accidents at work or, on the contrary, are they reduction-driving components? This article tries to catch such links and assess the allometric exponent between the number of accidents at work and the number of employees in an enterprise.     

Underground parallel pipelines domino effect: An analysis based on pipeline crater models and historical accidents

This paper focuses on the analysis of the possibility of domino effect in underground parallel pipelines relying on historical accident data and pipeline crater models. An underground pipeline can be considered as safe following an accident with an adjacent gas or liquefied pipeline when it remains outside the ground crater generated. In order to prevent the domino effect in these cases, the design of parallel pipelines has to consider adequate pipeline separations based on the crater width, which is one of the widely used methods in engineering applications. The objective of this work is the analysis of underground petroleum product pipelines ruptures with the formation of a ground crater as well as the evaluation of possible domino effects in these cases. A detailed literature survey has been carried out to review existing crater models along with a historical analysis of past accidents. A FORTRAN code has been implemented to assess the performance of the Gasunie, the Batelle and the Advantica crater models. In addition to this, a novel Accident-Based crater model has been presented, which allows the prediction of the crater width as a function of the relevant design pipeline parameters as well as the soil density. Modifications have also been made to the Batelle and Accident-Based models in order to overcome the underestimation of the crater width. The calculated crater widths have been compared with real accident data and the performance evaluation showed that the proposed Accident-Based model has a better performance compared to other models studied in this work. The analysis of forty-eight past accidents indicated a major potential of underground parallel pipelines domino effect which is proven by two real cases taken from the literature. Relying on the investigated accidents, the crater width was smaller than or equal to 20 m in most cases indicating that the definition of underground pipeline separations at around 10 m would be sufficient to ensure a small probability of the domino effect.     

Validation of the operational emergency response model at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute using data from etex and the chernobyl accident

The Eulerian atmospheric tracer transport model MATCH (Multiscale Atmospheric Transport and Chemistry model) has been extended with a Lagrangian particle model treating the initial dispersion of pollutants from point sources. The model has been implemented at the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute in an emergency response system for nuclear accidents and can be activated on short notice to provide forecast concentration and deposition fields.The model has been used to simulate the transport of the inert tracer released during the ETEX experiment and the transport and deposition of ¹³⁷Cs from the Chernobyl accident. Visual inspection of the results as well as statistical analysis shows that the extent, time of arrival and duration of the tracer cloud, is in good agreement with the observations for both cases, with a tendency towards over-prediction for the first ETEX release. For the Chernobyl case the simulated deposition pattern over Scandinavia and over Europe as a whole agrees with observations when observed precipitation is used in the simulation. When model calculated precipitation is used, the quality of the simulation is reduced significantly and the model fails to predict major features of the observed deposition field.     

基于风险分析的公共场所人员安全容量确定方法

为满足目前公共场所安全容量定额管理需求,提出了基于风险分析的公共场所人员安全容量确定方法,具体分析了该方法的实现流程。首先从影响公共场所人员容量的风险源出发,分析活动类型、场所类型、参加人员和灾害事故这4个方面的人群风险源影响,而后从运动阈值、心理阈值、心理阈值和服务资源阈值4个承受力角度重点阐述了运动安全容量、生理安全容量、生理安全容量和服务安全容量。通过风险分析方法得到的安全容量,考虑了公共场所的风险特点,并且这个安全容量将随着风险因素的变化而不同。这个方法可用于指导公共场所人员安全容量定额管理。     

江苏沿海地区化工事故时空变化分析与对策研究

统计汇总了2006—2009年江苏沿海地区发生的化工事故,分析事故发生的时间趋势、空间分布、事故原因、死亡人数以及类型等特点。结果表明:事故发生频次稳定,增长趋势不明显。71%的事故发生于园区内,29%的事故发生在分散企业。连云港事故主要发生于沿海化工区密集带,盐城事故主要分布于沿海化工区域,少数发生在内陆地区,南通事故发生地点较为分散。总体来看,江苏沿海地区化工事故具有数量多,影响广,造成的环境经济损失较大的特点。     

我国区域道路交通安全形势对比与影响因素分析

根据2007年的政府统计数据,将全国划分为4个社会经济发展区域,并对比各区域道路交通的发展状况与安全形势,然后运用SPSS统计软件分析道路交通安全评价参数与社会经济发展水平之间的相关性。发现社会经济发展梯次靠前的区域,其道路交通与安全状况也相对较好;GDP、人口、机动车保有量、机动车驾驶证普及率、道路条件和交通运输规模等因素分别对交通事故的死亡人数、万车死亡率、亿元GDP死亡率和百公里道路死亡率等指标具有显著影响。针对各区域的道路交通安全现状,必须进一步加快交通基础与安全设施建设,建立和完善交通事故紧急救援体系,加强交通安全宣传、教育、管理以及区域间的交流与合作。     

交通运输企业交通事故法律适用问题探讨

交通运输企业的交通运输事故法律适用问题引起了社会广泛争议。如不明确这个问题,对于执法主体、执法权限就不能明确,既会产生安全管理的盲区,有时候也会损害企业的相关权益。文章对《中华人民共和国安全生产法》适用范围条款进行了分析解读,阐明道路交通运输企业的交通运输安全问题既适用《安全生产法》,也适用《道路交通安全法》,二法之间不会有交叉,更不会产生冲突;同时也对道路交通事故的属性进行了分析,并探讨了交通运输企业交通事故的法律适用问题。     

我国“十二五”期间生产安全死亡事故直接经济损失估算

对“十二五”期间发生的、已经公布的生产安全死亡事故报告进行检索,选择事故调查报告要素比较齐全、具有代表性的生产安全死亡事故219起进行直接经济损失统计分析,计算每死亡1个人造成的直接经济损失。建立以事故死亡人数测算全国生产安全死亡事故直接经济损失的计算模型,根据公开的年度生产安全事故死亡人数,估算全国年度生产安全事故直接经济损失。估算结果表明,“十二五”期间我国生产安全死亡事故直接经济损失达到4 651亿元,约占国内生产总值的0.16%,占全国财政收入的0.72%,生产安全死亡事故的直接经济损失巨大。     

交通事故现场物证点线系列直角坐标测绘定位方法

为了研究满足交通事故现场记录图的技术性、证据性要求的交通事故现场测绘方 法,针对现有现场图定位方法的不足,重点从交通事故证据审查的视角,提出物证定位 观点,分析其技术构成并构建内容体系;在此基础上,依据技术标准基本要求,运用平面 坐标定位原理,以交通事故现场物证定位思想为基础,研究开发交通事故现场点线系列 直角坐标测绘定位方法及其具体应用技术。研究表明:物证定位是能够将现场元素定位 和现场道路定位协同考虑的一种交通事故现场物证固定技术,以其基本思想与原理可以 开发交通事故现场点线系列直角坐标测绘定位方法;该方法有多种变换方法可适用不同 情况的交通事故现场测绘;应用该方法绘制的现场记录图,可以满足现场记录图技术性 及证据性的双重要求。     

Major accident management in the process industry: An expert tool called CESMA for intelligent allocation of prevention investments

A tool (called CESMA) was developed to carry out cost–benefit analyses and cost-effectiveness analyses of prevention investments for avoiding major accidents. A wide variety of parameters necessary to calculate both the costs of the considered preventive measures and the benefits related with the avoidance of accidents were identified in the research. The benefits are determined by estimating the difference in (hypothetical) major accident costs without and with the implementation of a preventive measure. As many relevant costs and benefits as possible were included into the tool, based on literature and expert opinion, in order to be able to deliver an all-embracing cost–benefit analysis and cost-effectiveness analysis to assist in the investment decision process. Because major accidents are related to extremely low frequencies, the tool takes the uncertainty of the unwanted occurrence of a major accident into account through the usage of a so-called ‘disproportion factor’. Compared with existing software, the CESMA tool is innovative by striving for an as-accurate-as-possible picture of costs and benefits of major accident prevention, and taking the uncertainties accompanying disastrous events into consideration. Furthermore, an illustrative example of CESMA is presented in the paper.