Hazard Analysis Approach Research Articles

Prospectively identifying risks and controls for advanced brain-computer interfaces: A Networked Hazard Analysis and Risk Management System (Net-HARMS) approach

The introduction of advanced digital technologies continues to increase system complexity and introduce risks, which must be proactively identified and managed to support system resilience. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are one such technology; however, the risks arising from broad societal use of the technology have yet to be identified and controlled. This study applied a structured systems thinking-based risk assessment method to prospectively identify risks and risk controls for a hypothetical future BCI system lifecycle. The application of the Networked Hazard Analysis and Risk Management System (Net-HARMS) method identified over 800 risks throughout the BCI system lifecycle, from BCI development and regulation through to BCI use, maintenance, and decommissioning. High-criticality risk themes include the implantation and degradation of unsafe BCIs, unsolicited brain stimulation, incorrect signals being sent to safety-critical technologies, and insufficiently supported BCI users. Over 600 risk controls were identified that could be implemented to support system safety and performance resilience. Overall, many highly-impactful BCI system safety and performance risks may arise throughout the BCI system lifecycle and will require collaborative efforts from a wide range of BCI stakeholders to adequately control. Whilst some of the identified controls are practical, work is required to develop a more systematic set of controls to best support the design of a resilient sociotechnical BCI system.

Responsible innovation: Mitigating the food safety aspects of cultured meat production.

There is much interest in cultured (cultivated) meat as a potential solution to concerns over the ecological and environmental footprint of food production, especially from animal-derived food products. The aim of this critical review is to undertake a structured analysis of existing literature to (i) identify the range of materials that could be used within the cultured meat process; (ii) explore the potential biological and chemical food safety issues that arise; (iii) identify the known and also novel aspects of the food safety hazard portfolio that will inform hazard analysis and risk assessment approaches, and (iv) position a responsible innovation framework that can be utilized to mitigate food safety concerns with specific emphasis on cultured meat. Although a number of potential food safety hazards are identified that need to be considered within a food safety plan, further research is required to validate and verify that these food safety hazards have been suitably controlled and, where possible, eliminated. The responsible innovation framework developed herein, which extends beyond hazard analysis and traditional risk assessment approaches, can be applied in multiple contexts, including this use case of cultured meat production.

Real-time urban flood modeling: exploring the sub-grid approach for accurate simulation and hazard analysis

Real-time urban flood modeling: exploring the sub-grid approach for accurate simulation and hazard analysis

Identification of Advantages and Limitations of Current Risk Assessment and Hazard Analysis Methods when Applied on Autonomous Agricultural Machineries

Highlights The three main types of risk assessment and hazard analysis techniques applied on autonomous agricultural machines are: (1) Informal Group Analysis; (2) Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment (HARA); and (3) Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Replicability is the main advantage of FMEA and HARA, while cost effectiveness is the main advantage of Informal Group Analysis. Subjectivity and the requirement for prior knowledge (data) are the main weaknesses of FMEA, HARA, and Informal Group Analysis when applied to novel and revolutionary autonomous agricultural machines. Abstract. In the last ten years, the development of automated agricultural machinery has seen noteworthy advancements. Nevertheless, the successful commercialization of these technologies depends critically on their ability to operate safely. This study evaluated the advantages and limitations of current risk assessment and hazard analysis methods currently used to ensure the safety of autonomous agricultural machines. An online survey containing 18 questions was distributed to 711 participants identified as potential individuals who are currently working or have worked on autonomous agricultural machines to determine the type and frequency of risk assessment and hazard analysis methods applied on autonomous agricultural machines, examine the advantages and limitations of each method, and investigate the perceived effectiveness of each method. Frequency analysis was used to determine the most and least utilized risk assessment and hazard analysis methods. The advantages and limitations of each risk assessment and hazard analysis approach were compared. Descriptive statistics (counts, means, medians, percent) and frequency analysis of the variables were used. The three main types of risk assessment and hazard analysis techniques applied to autonomous agricultural machines. The methods are (a) Informal Group Analysis (e.g., Brainstorming), (b) Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment (HARA), and (c) Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Replicability is perceived as the main advantage of FMEA and HARA, while cost-effectiveness is the main advantage of Informal Group Analysis. The need to have pre-existing data of the autonomous agricultural machine at hand to be able to perform risk assessment and subjectivity are the main limitations of FMEA, HARA, and Informal Group Analysis dealing with novel and revolutionary autonomous agricultural machines. Industry experts do not believe that the risk assessment and hazard analysis procedures now used are reliable and efficient enough to guarantee the safety of autonomous agricultural tractors. This study reveals important information about the current state of risk assessment and hazard analysis methods in the context of autonomous agricultural machinery. This knowledge can inform future research, policy development, and industry practices to ensure the safety of autonomous agricultural machines. Keywords: Agricultural machine, Autonomous, FMEA, HARA, Hazard analysis, Informal Group Analysis, Risk assessment, Safety, Survey.

Time-Dependent Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis for Seismic Sequences Based on Hybrid Renewal Process Models

ABSTRACT Probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) is a methodology with a long history and has been widely implemented. However, in the conventional PSHA and sequence-based probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (SPSHA) approaches, the occurrence of mainshocks is modeled as the homogeneous Poisson process, which is unsuitable for large earthquakes. To account for the stationary occurrence of small-to-moderate (STM) mainshocks and the nonstationary behavior of large mainshocks, we propose a time-dependent sequence-based probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (TD-SPSHA) approach by combining the time-dependent mainshock probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (TD-PSHA) and aftershock probabilistic seismic hazard analysis, consisting of four components: (1) STM mainshocks, (2) aftershocks associated with STM mainshocks, (3) large mainshocks, and (4) aftershocks associated with large mainshocks. The approach incorporates an exponential-magnitude, exponential-time model for STM mainshocks, and a renewal-time, characteristic-magnitude model for large mainshocks to assess the time-dependent hazard for mainshocks. Then nonhomogeneous Poisson process is used to model the occurrence of associated aftershocks, in which the aftershock sequences can be modeled using the Reasenberg and Jones (RJ) model or the epidemic-type aftershock sequence (ETAS) model. To demonstrate the proposed TD-SPSHA approach, a representative site of the San Andreas fault is selected as a benchmark case, for which five time-dependent recurrence models, including normal, lognormal, gamma, Weibull, and Brownian passage time (BPT) distributions, are chosen to determine the occurrence of large mainshocks. Then sensitivity tests are presented to show the effects on TD-SPSHA, including (1) time-dependent recurrence models, (2) mainshock magnitude, (3) rupture distance, (4) aftershock duration, (5) escaped time since the last event, and (6) future time interval. Furthermore, the bimodal hybrid renewal model is utilized by TD-SPSHA for another case site. The comparison results illustrate that the sequence hazard analysis approach ignoring time-varying properties of large earthquakes for long periods and the effects of associated aftershocks will result in a significantly underestimated hazard. The TD-SPSHA-based hazard curves using the ETAS model are larger than those of the RJ model. The proposed TD-SPSHA approach may be of significant interest to the field of earthquake engineering, particularly in the context of structural design or seismic risk analysis for the long term.

Indonesian “tsunami-generation” in a nutshell: systematic literature review

Publications related to tsunami-generation phase hold 42.8% of all the publications over all tsunami hazard literatures in Indonesia. Corroborating the fact, tsunami-generation studies are also vital in determining the type of propagation and inundation that may appear in the surrounding coastal regions, which in practice, can also help determining disaster management specifics and risk reduction activities. A literature review regarding tsunami-generation has been done for those purpose by using our CARI! Knowledge Engine, which includes collections of both International and Indonesian journals within the scope of Indonesian locus context. This study unpacks publication trend, the most influential articles, top contributing journals, top main authors, top institutions, and dominant countries as well as the science mapping of tsunami-generation subjects. To gain deeper understanding, we also develop tsunami-generation research framework within the basis of tsunami generation force, time occurrence, monitoring, and measurement approach, as well as hazard analysis approach. From the review, an interesting peak of tsunami-generation publications has been shown in 2020 (39 publications), following the occurrence of several Indonesian major tsunamis in the previous decade and the globally impacting Aceh Tsunami (or the Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami) in 2004. Among all the publications of tsunami-generation force, tsunamigenic earthquake has become the most studied topic (67.7% of all publications), while the most discussed atypical sources mainly come from volcanic eruption (46.67% of all atypical literatures) and submarine landslide (33.33% of all atypical literatures). In terms of tsunami-generation source, it is found that the Sunda Megathrust has been the most-discussed location, which is mentioned within 39 publications, followed by the Palu-Koro Fault with 18 publications and the Krakatau Volcano by 16 publications. Apart from the notice of significant difference between research of historical tsunami and paleotsunami (120:5 publications), some gaps also can be found when discussing the meteotsunami-generation mechanism in Indonesia and the Global Navigation Satellite System’s Total Electron Content (GNSS-TEC) method, which, although proven beneficial for the development of tsunami early warning system, accuracy is still the main issue in capturing tsunami signals and positioning actual source location of tsunami. These were some highlighted limitations that arise in our process to understand tsunami-generation mechanisms and the exploitations of the knowledge. Therefore, future studies specifically within these areas are further encouraged.

Applying System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA)-based methodology supported by Systems Engineering models to a UK rail project

Systems safety in railways focuses on providing the necessary assurance that the railway system is operationally safe and meets all relevant regulatory requirements. Safety risks associated with changes in the UK railway are controlled through the Common Safety Method for Risk Evaluation and Assessment (CSM-RA). As part of the CSM-RA framework, various safety analysis methods such as Failure Modes and Effects Criticality Analysis (FMECA), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA), Event Tree Analysis (ETA) and other traditional analysis methods conducted via expert brainstorming such as Hazard Identification (HAZID) workshops have been relied upon for many years in the UK rail industry; aiming to evaluate and mitigate all reasonably foreseeable hazards. This paper reports a comparison case study of the application of a novel System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA)-based methodology against the traditional approach for hazard analysis in UK rail projects. The proposed methodology uses Systems Engineering (SE) models in each of its steps. The application of the novel methodology demonstrates that it is suitable for hazard identification and analysis in complex rail systems. It shows that the approach goes beyond the capabilities of traditional methods, provides insights into the interaction among system components and captures hazards within the context of the whole. The SE models used in this study prove to be valuable not only for illustrating the System of Interest (SOI) visually, but also providing a high-level understanding of the system and a more detailed understanding of component interactions. They also improved the focus, in scope, effectiveness, and efficiency of the analysis.

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis on Pavement Failure Restoration; Case Study of Sorong–Makbon Road

The Sorong–MakbonSorong–Makbon Corridor is one of the key routes connecting Sorong to other sections of the West Papua region in Indonesia. Throughout the Sorong–Makbon Corridor, roads and slopes often sustain damage. When landslides reach the road shoulder and destroy the pavement, they often prevent access to the road. In addition to the influence of surface water runoff, there are indications that earthquakes contribute to the ineffectiveness of the previous design. This seems to be accurate since the author has seen the typical movement of avalanches. Using the Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA) approach, the earthquake’s effects on this corridor were mapped out. With the use of the Indonesian earthquake data library, the Matlab-Zmap Program, and the Spectrum Response, the history of earthquakes in the Sorong–Makbon corridor was analysed to determine their velocity. This analysis reveals that the earthquake’s influence on the Sorong–Makbon corridor has an acceleration value between 1.2 and 1.5 G. The prior design did not account for a quake of this magnitude. With this study, the correctly identified seismic impact could be sent back into the simulation to more adequately repair and restore the damage.

Seismic hazard analysis by neo-deterministic seismic hazard analysis approach (NDSHA) for Kosovo

Abstract It is favorable to re-evaluate the seismic hazard for a given territory, since in the course of time new methods are developed and new data are gathered that can enable more sophisticated (physically sound) and reliable assessment of the seismic hazard. Therefore, it is mandatory to re-evaluate the seismic hazard for Kosovo, considering the seismic sources in Kosovo. The data of this article influence the reduction of seismic risk for the territory of Kosovo.

A systems-theoretic hazard analysis for safety-critical medical gas pipeline and oxygen supply systems

Medical gas systems are safety-critical systems due to their association with critical care situations. In particular, the oxygen gas supply system contains many complications represented in the interactions between human and equipment while operating the system and managing emergencies. Therefore, it contains many hazards that require high safety standards to maintain the integrity of the system. The traditional hazard analysis methods suffer from weaknesses as their linear reasoning assumption cannot adequately describe the actual behavior of modern socio-technical systems that are characterized by tight couplings and complex interactions among technical, human and organizational aspects. Alternatively, Systems Theoretical Process Analysis (STPA) is a new hazard analysis approach that accounts for the causal relationships between system components and their unsafe interactions, allowing the integration of both occupational and process safety. STPA is widely used in the automotive, aviation, and aerospace industries whereas there are a few applications of STPA in healthcare domain. This paper proposes the use of STPA methodology in analyzing the hazards related to the medical gas pipeline and oxygen supply systems in a low-medium income country. Specifically, the analysis considers the emergencies that stem from the total or partial failure of oxygen supply and the hazards related to temporary restoration of the medical oxygen system. The results indicate that STPA contributes to identifying the hazards resulting from the interference between the human, machines, and equipment, and studying the unsafe effect of the system elements on each other. This research suggests control measures to prevent the unsafe interaction of the system components and improve the response time to oxygen failure incidents, which greatly reduces the potential consequences.

Hazard Analysis Techniques, Methods and Approaches: A Review

Hazard analysis (HA) is an indispensable task during the specification and development of safety-critical systems. It involves identifying potential forms of harm, their effects, causal factors, and the level of risk associated with them. Systems are always vulnerable to mishaps, hazards, or risks that result in system failures, resulting in injuries, loss, and damage. Even though previous studies have made a significant contribution to the study of hazard analysis, little effort has been made to give an overview of the common HA techniques, highlighting their responsibilities, advantages, and disadvantages. Thus, this paper aims to focus on and feature the existing HA techniques along with their respective functions. An overall picture of the advantages and disadvantages of listed HA techniques is presented as well in this paper. Such a study may be utilized as a guide to aid researchers and practitioners in understanding hazard analysis. The investigation is conducted using a process-oriented approach that consists of three steps: formulation of the research questions, the gathering of related studies, and the analysis of the extracted studies. The study revealed a total of 22 HA techniques. A further study is to propose and carry out a systematic literature review to identify to what extent the hazard analysis techniques have been implemented and evaluated in case studies.

Flood Hazard Zonation Using an Artificial Neural Network Model: A Case Study of Kabul River Basin, Pakistan

Floods are the most frequent and destructive natural disasters causing damages to human lives and their properties every year around the world. Pakistan in general and the Peshawar Vale, in particular, is vulnerable to recurrent floods due to its unique physiography. Peshawar Vale is drained by River Kabul and its major tributaries namely, River Swat, River Jindi, River Kalpani, River Budhni and River Bara. Kabul River has a length of approximately 700 km, out of which 560 km is in Afghanistan and the rest falls in Pakistan. Looking at the physiography and prevailing flood characteristics, the development of a flood hazard model is required to provide feedback to decision-makers for the sustainability of the livelihoods of the inhabitants. Peshawar Vale is a flood-prone area, where recurrent flood events have caused damages to standing crops, agricultural land, sources of livelihood earnings and infrastructure. The objective of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the ANN algorithm in the determination of flood inundated areas. The ANN algorithm was implemented in C# for the prediction of inundated areas using nine flood causative factors, that is, drainage network, river discharge, rainfall, slope, flow accumulation, soil, surface geology, flood depth and land use. For the preparation of spatial geodatabases, thematic layers of the drainage network, river discharge, rainfall, slope, flow accumulation, soil, surface geology, flood depth and land use were generated in the GIS environment. A Neural Network of nine, six and one neurons for the first, second and output layers, respectively, were designed and subsequently developed. The output and the resultant product of the Neural Network approach include flood hazard mapping and zonation of the study area. Parallel to this, the performance of the model was evaluated using Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Correlation coefficient (R2). This study has further highlighted the applicability and capability of the ANN in flood hazard mapping and zonation. The analysis revealed that the proposed model is an effective and viable approach for flood hazard analysis and zonation.

Seismic probabilistic risk assessment of weir structures considering the earthquake hazard in the Korean Peninsula

Seismic safety evaluation of weir structure is significant considering the catastrophic economical consequence of operational disruption. In recent years, the seismic probabilistic risk assessment (SPRA) has been issued as a key area of research for the hydraulic system to mitigate and manage the risk. The aim of this paper is to assess the seismic probabilistic risk of weir structures employing the seismic hazard and the structural fragility in Korea. At the first stage, probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA) approach is performed to extract the hazard curve at the weir site using the seismic and geological data. Thereafter, the seismic fragility that defines the probability of structural collapse is evaluated by using the incremental dynamic analysis (IDA) method in accordance with the four different design limit states as failure identification criteria. Consequently, by combining the seismic hazard and fragility results, the seismic risk curves are developed that contain helpful information for risk management of hydraulic structures. The tensile stress of the mass concrete is found to be more vulnerable than other design criteria. The hazard deaggregation illustrates that moderate size and far source earthquakes are the most likely scenario for the site. In addition, the annual loss curves for two different hazard source models corresponding to design limit states are extracted.

A Hazard Analysis Approach for the SOTIF in Intelligent Railway Driving Assistance Systems Using STPA and Complex Network

The Intelligent Railway Driving Assistance System (IRDAS) is a novel kind of onboard system that relies on its own situational awareness function to ensure the safety and efficiency of train driving. In such systems, the use of situational awareness brings about a new fault-free safety problem, i.e., the safety of the intended functionality (SOTIF). It is essential to analyze the SOTIF-related hazardous factors for ensuring a safe train operation. In this paper, a hazard analysis approach is proposed to capture and evaluate SOTIF-related hazardous factors of IRDAS. This approach consists of an extended STPA-based hazardous factor identification part and a complex network-based hazardous factor evaluation part. In the first part, an extended control structure of STPA is designed for the modeling of the situational awareness process, followed by a new classification of SOTIF-related causal scenarios to assist the identification of causal scenarios. In the second part, a modeling method for heterogeneous complex networks and some customized topological indexes are proposed to evaluate the hazardous factors identified in the STPA causal analysis. The outcomes of the approach can help develop targeted hazard control strategies. The proposed approach has been applied to a new IRDAS operating in Tsuen Wan Line of Hong Kong MTR. The result shows that the approach is effective for the analysis of hazardous factors and is helpful for the formulation of hazard control strategies.

Analysing an autonomous tramway positioning system with the Uppaal Statistical Model Checker

Abstract The substitution of traditional occupancy detecting sensors with an Autonomous Positioning System (APS) is a promising solution to contain costs and improve performance of current tramway signalling systems. APS is an onboard system using satellite positioning and other inertial platforms to autonomously estimate the position of the tram with the needed levels of uncertainty and protection. However, autonomous positioning introduces, even in absence of faults, a quantitative uncertainty with respect to traditional sensors. This paper investigates this issue in the context of an industrial project: a model of the envisaged solution is proposed, and it is analysed using Uppaal Statistical Model Checker. A novel model-driven hazard analysis approach to the exploration of emerging hazards is proposed. The analysis emphasises how the virtualisation of legacy track circuits and on-board satellite positioning equipment may give rise to new hazards, not present in the traditional system.

Model-Based Systemic Hazard Analysis Approach for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles and Case Study Application in Automatic Emergency Braking System

Model-Based Systemic Hazard Analysis Approach for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles and Case Study Application in Automatic Emergency Braking System

Probabilistic seismic hazard mapping of National Capital Region of India using a modified gridded seismicity model

This is the first comprehensive study for a seismic macro-zonation of the National Capital Region of India by using the probabilistic seismic hazard analysis approach. A modified gridded seismicity model is used for this purpose, in which the earthquake occurrence rates obtained using the Gutenberg-Richter's (G-R) relationships for conventional area type seismic sources are distributed non-uniformly among a grid of cells. This provides a more robust approach than the commonly used weighted sum of area sources of homogeneous seismicity and the zone-free smoothed gridded seismicity. Other distinguishing features of the present analysis include: detailed seismotectonic evaluation of the region to identify seven area type seismic sources, compilation of a comprehensive earthquake catalogue for the estimation of seismicity recurrence parameters, selection of the most appropriate ground motion prediction equation by using a database of 71 strong motion accelerograms recorded in the region, and estimation of the compatible distance parameters by associating a fictitious fault rupture plane to each grid cell with appropriate strike and dip angles. Hazards maps are prepared for the hard rock site condition in terms of the peak ground acceleration and the 5%-damping acceleration response spectrum amplitudes for several combinations of natural periods and return periods. A simple empirical approach is also developed to obtain amplification factors for modifying the uniform hazard response spectra for the rock sites to those for the soil sites with a given VS30 value. The hazard estimates from this study are found to be somewhat higher with greater site-to-site variations as compared to those from the earlier studies.

Enhancing Safety in the Security and Alarm Monitoring Industry: A Case Study in the Development of Job Hazard Analyses

Job hazard analysis is a process of identifying potential hazards for each task within an activity and enacting safety rules to eliminate or control the hazards. No studies have been published regarding their use in the security industry. Technicians working in the industry face safety challenges due to the hazards inherent in their work environments and the tasks they need to achieve. Technicians who install and service such systems for a large company in the industry were provided with a “safety bundle” of information and tools to help them avoid hazards. An observation of technicians at four locations identified a lack of adherence to this safety bundle. Subject matter experts were presented with the lack of adherence data. They also developed use cases to support identifying additional content to help technicians with a job hazard analysis approach. The content will be added to the safety bundle and evaluated.

A Novel Hazard Analysis and Risk Assessment Approach for Road Vehicle Functional Safety through Integrating STPA with FMEA

ISO26262: 2018 is an international functional safety standard for electrical and/or electronic (E/E) systems within road vehicles. It provides appropriate safety requirements for road vehicles to avoid unreasonable residual risk according to automotive safety integrity levels (ASILs) derived from hazard analysis and risk assessment (HARA) required in the ISO26262 concept phase. Systems theoretic process analysis (STPA) seems to be designed specifically to deal with hazard analysis of modern complex systems, but it does not include risk evaluation required by most safety related international standards. So we integrated STPA into Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) template to form a new method called system theoretic process analysis based on an FMEA template, STPAFT for shot, which could not only meet all the requirements of the concept phase in ISO26262, but also make full use of the advantages of the two methods. Through the focus of FMEA on low-level components, STPAFT can obtain more detailed causal factors (CFs), which is very helpful for derivation of safety goals (SGs) and the functional safety requirements (FSRs) in the concept phase of ISO26262. The application of STPAFT is described by the case study of fuel level estimation and display system (FLEDS) to show how the concept phase of ISO26262 could be supported by STPAFT.

A review of industry 4.0 revolution potential in a sustainable and renewable palm oil industry: HAZOP approach

Palm oil is a renewable resource that has the potential to replace fossil fuel and petrochemical for a better sustainable system. However, there is room for improvement in the current operation of the palm oil industry to achieve better sustainability development. The industrial revolution toward automation and artificial intelligence (AI) is the new trend known as the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0). Unfortunately, the palm oil industry has been moving slowly in this revolution. This paper aims to conduct a detailed review of the current state of the palm oil industry development toward Industry 4.0. A novel Hazard and Operability Analysis (HAZOP) approach is adopted i) to ensure a detailed evaluation of the existing problems, and ii) to identify potential implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies in the palm oil industry. HAZOP is a common approach used in chemical engineering to systematically evaluate process safety and identify the possible improvement of the existing system. The same concept is applied in this paper to investigate the possible adaptation of Industry 4.0 technologies to improve the palm oil industry. Existing Industry 4.0 technologies and features were evaluated to identify feasible adaptation in the industry. The HAZOP review proposed 23 recommendations to improve the palm oil industry with Industry 4.0 technologies to achieve a higher standard in sustainable production. A total of 13 specific Industry 4.0 features were identified as the potential development gaps for palm oil industry stakeholders, which included the adaptation of Internet-of-Things sensors, cloud computing, blockchain, and smart imaging processing technologies.