Dynamic Risk Analysis in the Chemical and Petroleum Industry

Evolution and Interaction with Parallel Disciplines in the Perspective of Industrial Application

Nicola Paltrinieri, Faisal Khan, Faisal Irshad Khan

• Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780128037652
• eBook ISBN: 9780128038239
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Chemical & Biochemical Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Dynamic Risk Analysis in the Chemical and Petroleum Industry focuses on bridging the gap between research and industry by responding to the following questions: - What are the most relevant developments of risk analysis? - How can these studies help industry in the prevention of major accidents? Paltrinieri and Khan provide support for professionals who plan to improve risk analysis by introducing innovative techniques and exploiting the potential of data share and process technologies. This concrete reference within an ever-growing variety of innovations will be most helpful to process safety managers, HSE managers, safety engineers and safety engineering students. This book is divided into four parts. The Introduction provides an overview of the state-of-the-art risk analysis methods and the most up-to-date popular definitions of accident scenarios. The second section on Dynamic Risk Analysis shows the dynamic evolution of risk analysis and covers Hazard Identification, Frequency Analysis, Consequence Analysis and Establishing the Risk Picture. The third section on Interaction with Parallel Disciplines illustrates the interaction between risk analysis and other disciplines from parallel fields, such as the nuclear, the economic and the financial sectors. The final section on Dynamic Risk Management addresses risk management, which may dynamically learn from itself and improve in a spiral process leading to a resilient system. - Helps dynamic analysis and management of risk in chemical and process industry - Provides industry examples and techniques to assist you with risk- based decision making - Addresses also the human, economic and reputational aspects composing the overall risk picture

Part 1

Introduction

Outline

Chapter 1. A Short Overview of Risk Analysis Background and Recent Developments

Chapter 2. New Definitions of Old Issues and Need for Continuous Improvement

Chapter 1

A Short Overview of Risk Analysis Background and Recent Developments

V. Villa¹, N. Paltrinieri^2,3, F. Khan⁴, and V. Cozzani^{1 1}University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy ²Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway ³SINTEF Technology and Society, Trondheim, Norway ⁴Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, NL, Canada

Abstract

The objective of this review is to analyze the advances in risk analysis during the past 30 years and to offer an overview on its recent progress and applications for chemical and process industries. Although the general approach of quantitative risk assessment (QRA) remains unchanged since its origin, QRA has continuously evolved in different forms. Its fields of application have enlarged significantly beyond process safety, becoming a fundamental tool for the development, continued operation, and expansion of process installations. On the other hand, QRA limitations, such as its inability to update the risk picture, led to the development of recent dynamic risk assessment approaches, for which methodological contributions are introduced in this chapter. This demonstrates that risk analysis is in continuous development, but a way forward leading to real-time support to decision-making is suggested.

Keywords

Chemical process industry; Dynamic risk assessment; QRA; Risk analysis

1. Introduction

Public interest in the field of risk analysis has expanded greatly during the past three decades, and risk analysis has emerged as an essential and systematic tool that plays a relevant role in the overall management of many aspects of our lives. In technical domains characterized by risk of major accidents, risk assessment has dramatically shown its importance. For instance, despite the obvious differences between the nuclear and the chemical process sectors, a continuous exchange of knowledge and methods from one to the other has led to huge improvements in the chemical process industry [1] and helped it to cope with increasing issues of social acceptability [2]. Distant events in time, such as the tragedies that occurred in Bhopal (1984) and Piper Alpha (1988), as well as more recent ones, such as Buncefield (2005) and Deepwater Horizon (2010), have emphasized the essential role of adequate management and control for the chemical process industry.

The European industrial safety regulations aimed at controlling major-accident hazards related to chemical substances are named after the town of Seveso, Italy, the scene of a disaster in a chemical process plant in 1976. In 2012, the third generation of these regulations (Seveso III directive) [3] was issued; it applies to more than 10,000 industrial establishments in the European Union, mainly chemical, petrochemical, logistics, and metal refining sectors [4]. Quantitative risk assessment (QRA) is used to evaluate the overall process safety risk in the chemical process industry and identify areas requiring risk reduction [5], to comply with the related regulations.

In the past decades, several reviews dealt with risk analysis for process industries [6–9], but risk analysis methodologies and applications have rapidly evolved toward a dynamic direction, to address risk issues in a continuously evolving environment and to overcome the limitations of traditional techniques. This chapter summarizes risk analysis methodologies and relevant applications for a process industry, highlighting how recent techniques may overcome some of the drawbacks identified in conventional methods.

2. Fundamentals of Risk Analysis

2.1. Quantitative Risk Analysis

QRA is a systematic methodology for identifying and quantifying contributions to the overall risk of a process facility. As defined by NORSOK Standard Z-013 [10] and by the International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission standard [11], QRA includes establishment of context, risk identification, performance of risk analysis, and risk evaluation. Communication, consultation, monitoring, and review activities should be performed prior to, during, and after the assessment to guarantee the achievement of its goals. QRA can provide authorities and stakeholders with a sound basis for creating awareness about existing hazards and risks. Based on the outcomes from the QRA, potential measures to control or reduce risk can be implemented, and their effect can be assessed.

A preliminary step (Fig. 1.1, 1: establishing the context) defines objectives, responsibilities, and methods as well as risk acceptance criteria and deliveries throughout the process and execution plan, to derive full value from the results obtained [12]. The following step in the development of a QRA [Fig. 1.1, 2: hazard identification (HAZID)] is the identification of hazards, which may have several important aims: it may highlight possible malfunctions of the systems, outline top events that are undesired situations, and describe potential scenarios associated with the top events and their consequences. As reported by the Center for Chemical Process Safety [5], several approaches to HAZID may be employed: checklist analysis, what-if analysis, preliminary hazard analysis, fault tree analysis, hazard and operability study, bow-tie analysis, etc. Their applicability depends on the project life cycle as well as the amount of information required. The maximum credible accident scenario analysis method developed by Khan and Abbasi [13] can be used as a criterion to identify credible scenarios among a large number of possibilities.

Figure 1.1 Risk assessment flowchart [10].

Estimation of potential accident frequencies and evaluation of event consequences are central steps for the whole QRA process (Fig. 1.1, 3: analysis of initiating events, and 4: analysis of consequences). Crowl and Louvar [14] state that risk analysis basically involves the estimation of accident frequencies and consequences using engineering and mathematical techniques. One way to retrieve generic failure frequencies and probabilities is to use databases and apply the information in QRA calculations; specific plant data should be applied, if available. Guidelines in the QRA “Purple Book” [15] report generic loss of containment events and failure frequencies for a number of standard installations such as storage tanks, transport units, pipelines, and loading equipment. Consequence estimation is used to determine the potential for damage or injury from specific unwanted events. Quantification of consequences has usually been carried out in terms of losses in production, human health, assets, and environment. The assessment of consequences can be performed using a number of physical-mathematical and empirical models. A description of many available approaches has been presented by Arunraj and Maiti [16]. A review of available damage models applied to calculate the spatial distribution of damage (eg, probability of human death) has been carried out by Cozzani and Salzano [17].

The risk picture is established by considering all the risk contributi...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Contributors
• Preface
• Part 1. Introduction
• Part 2. Dynamic Risk Analysis
• Part 3. Interaction With Parallel Disciplines
• Part 4. Dynamic Risk Management
• Index