A novel approach for failure and consequence assessment considering multi-hazard coupling scenario in chemical industrial parks

Abstract

As a typical high-risk area, nature hazards acting on chemical industrial parks (CIPs) can result in catastrophic multi-hazard coupling scenarios (MHCSs). Existing research mainly adopts a linear superposition method based on simplified assumptions to analyze the coupling amplified effects of multi-hazard. Therefore, the complicated nonlinearity of consequence superposition has not been intensively studied. In this study, a new dynamic graph-based methodology is established to investigate the nonlinear superposition mechanism, by addressing the failure consequence assessment of multi-hazard. A typical MHCS of the earthquake-fire sequence is adopted to demonstrate the proposed methodology, and the failure prediction model of earthquake-damaged tanks subjected to the earthquake-fire sequence is numerically developed to calculate the failure consequence more accurately. The results indicate that the seismic damage significantly reduces the fire resistance of steel cylinder tanks. Compared to intact tanks, the time to failure of seismic damaged tanks is reduced by up to 8.48 min at most, exacerbating the escalation of domino effects. The consequence modeling without the consideration of fire resistance attenuation may be severely underestimated by a factor of 1.35 to 2.13. This method can be used to predict the dynamic consequence of the typical MHCSs and mitigate such accidents via more flexible adjustment of emergency decision-making at each evolution stage.