Risk Assessment Of Accidents Research Articles

Risks assessment and driving forces of urban environmental accident

Regional environmental accident risk is regarded as the focus and the most difficult challenge of environmental management, posing a serious threat to people's lives and property. Much of the current literature relies on calculating and assessing the risks of environmental accidents. Little is known regarding about the driving forces of environmental accident risks, and how they affect the level and distribution characteristics of risks, especially the inherent linkages between regions and enterprise (individuals). The aim of this research is to innovate and develop the method for assessing the risk of the environmental accidents at multiple scales in order to accurately investigate the distribution characteristics and driving factors of environmental accident risks. In this study, the Multiscale Environmental Accident Risks Assessment model (MEARA) was proposed to comprehensively evaluate the characteristics and impacts of environmental risk at different scales. And we adopted GeoDetector model (GED) to explore the dominant driving factors and their interaction among multiple scales. The city of Dongguan, China, was chosen as the research area. We discovered that: 1) there were significant differences in risk levels across industries, with the environmental accident risk of enterprises in Dongguan being generally low, while some industries, such as the petrochemical, telecommunication, and equipment manufacturing industries, had higher risks. 2) Risks of environmental accidents exhibited significant agglomeration. Rivers and lakes, coastal areas, and transportation hubs were all hotspots for high-risk enterprises and regions. 3) The interaction between social and economic factors was the most significant in terms of spatial heterogeneity among influencing factors. By analyzing the results of the GeoDetector, we realized that the economy and population were the dominant factors influencing the environmental accident risk level. The interaction results show that the interaction between the factors is significantly improved. The interaction of population, and GDP, ecological sensitivity, the importance of ecological function, and the intensity of hospital radiation has increased the explanatory power of the environmental accident risk level. We discuss the need of emergency management for environmental accident risks. We provide an innovative “point-area” multi-scale environmental accident risk assessment method, as well as strategies for environmental accident risk management of enterprises and regions at various risk levels. It is beneficial for effective emergency management to protect residents' living environments.

Assessment of ship accident risk in the east Surabaya shipping channel using formally safety assessment method

Surabaya East Shipping Channel is part of the busiest shipping lanes west of Surabaya in Indonesia after inflows in Tanjung Priok. With the navigation, channel conditions are long and narrow plus the number of flows in and out of the harbor boats is very vulnerable to accidents resulting in either the stranded sea, ship collision, or other accident types, which would harm the cruise interocular. By looking at the facts above, so it is necessary to conduct a more in-depth study of the accident risk assessment of the shipping channel east of Surabaya. This study aimed to obtain any kind of accident that has a high risk in the port of Surabaya, to know what impact may result from an accident with a high risk and gain steps that can be taken to reduce accidents in Surabaya East Shipping Channel by using Method Formal Safety Assessment (FSA). Of the six types of accidents that occur, there are three accidents with the highest risk of stranded ships, human accidents, collisions with ships dock at the time of sailing ships and dock. The impact of the third accident caused huge material losses. To reduce the risk of all three types of accidents was measured Implied Cost of Averting a Risk (ICAR), the lowest of any risk reduction options. Reduction of risk to do is impose a routine patrol and installation of signs groove ICAR ports have amounted to 234 million, giving a human rescue training vessel which has a value of 112 million ICAR and the latter is tightened harbor area with ICAR 84 million so that unauthorized parties do not enter in the harbor area.

Assessment of ship accident risk in the east Surabaya shipping channel using formally safety assessment method

Assessment of ship accident risk in the east Surabaya shipping channel using formally safety assessment method

Risk assessment of accidents at oil and gas infrastructure objects near the joint forces operation demarcation line

Tactical and technical characteristics of artillery and mortar systems that are in the enemy’s arsenal are analyzed and a GIS model of technogenic and ecological monitoring with areas of increased risk of damage to oil and gas infrastructure in the area of Joint Force Operation and along the demarcation line is created. Based on the data of the operating organizations, the information of the Armed Forces open for publication, and the results of the visits, the risk of damage to critical infrastructure during the shelling from the enemy was ranked.

Risk Assessment of Coal and Gas Outburst Accidents in Coal Mines Based on Factor Analysis and Logistic Regression

Risk Assessment of Coal and Gas Outburst Accidents in Coal Mines Based on Factor Analysis and Logistic Regression

A risk assessment framework considering uncertainty for corrosion-induced natural gas pipeline accidents

Corrosion degradation is one of the main causations of natural gas pipeline failure, which poses a severe threat to human life, assets, and the environment. This paper develops a methodology to assess the risk of corrosion-induced natural gas pipeline accidents considering the uncertainties in incident escalations. This approach can capture both the uncertainties in corrosion failure likelihood and the impact of pipeline leak accidents. A pair of limit state functions are established to estimate the corrosion failure probability of the pipeline. The pipeline accident from gas release to vapor cloud explosion (VCE) is modelled using empirical models. Subsequently, the uncertainties in gas pipeline corrosion failure accidents, reflected by some uncertain parameters, e.g., basic pipeline parameters, corrosion defect and environmental conditions et al., are identified. These identified parameters are discretized and described using a set of probability density functions. Eventually, Monte Carlo (MC) method is utilized to solve the established models. Besides, sensitivity analysis is conducted to study the effect of uncertain parameters on the likelihood and impact of a pipeline accident. A practical case is used to test the methodology, proving a valuable tool for risk assessment of corrosion-induced natural gas pipeline accidents.

Multi-hazard risk assessment in process industries: State-of-the-Art

Multi-hazard accidents in process industries, which can cause more severe consequences compared to individual accidents, have gained growing attention from administrators and scholars in recent years. With the development of process industries and the expansion of the urban area, high-risk zones may emerge in densely populated areas. Accurate risk assessment of the multi-hazard accidents in process industries is essential for protecting properties, human life, and the environment. This study reviews past studies on the risk assessment of three types of multi-hazard accidents in process industries: Natech events, domino effects, and concurrent hazards. The development trends of risk assessment of multi-hazard accidents are analyzed and the research gasps of past research are identified. Based on the identified gaps in previous research, future perspectives on multi-hazard research in process industries are discussed. To improve the assessment methods for multi-hazard risks, more advanced basic models and applicative risk analysis methods are required. Considering multi-hazard interactions and other factors are also important for process plants against multi hazards. This study can potentially contribute to developing better risk assessment models of multi-hazard accidents and therefore safer and resilient process industries.

Causal factors and risk assessment of fall accidents in the U.S. construction industry: A comprehensive data analysis (2000–2020)

This study delves into investigating the leading factors of occurring 23,057 fall accidents in the United States construction industry over 20 years (1/2000–8/2020) recorded in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) database. Additionally, the contributions are elicited in terms of diverse dimensions of fall accident, such as project type, construction end-use, work activity, worker's occupation and age, fall location and height, accident time, injury degree, and fall protection. The data is analysed using frequency analysis to obtain the trends of fall accidents, correlation analysis between the accident factors and the injury degree, and logistic regression analysis to establish a prediction model that can diagnose fatal and nonfatal accidents. The results emphasized that the proportion of fall accidents increased substantially, and there was egregious evidence that the usage of fall protection has no considerable improvement. Besides, most of the fall accidents were (1) from heights<9.15 m, (2) among the roofers, (3) occurring on new commercial buildings and residential projects with low cost, (4) during the time intervals 10:00–12:00 and 13:00–15:00, (5) among older workers which alert that the experience might not be enough to diminish the accident. The correlation analysis revealed the fall factors that were significantly associated with the injury degree. Subsequently, a logistic regression model was done to predict the injury outcome (fatal/nonfatal). It was found that the prediction model could correctly diagnose the injury degree outcome by 77.7% depending on the selected predictors of the fall accident. Furthermore, the odds of reporting fatal or nonfatal accidents from the prominent factors of fall were calculated, enhancing the risk assessment to avoid the implications of falls. This study might encourage the safety managers to apply proactive and preparedness procedures for reducing fall accidents and prioritize risks according to the likelihood of fall risk and injury characteristics by applying appropriate safety regulations.

Integrated Environmental Risk Assessment of Major Accidents in the Transport of Hazardous Substances

At present, the environmental risk assessment of major accidents is mainly carried out for stationary risk sources. Only marginal attention is paid to mobile risk sources, while the currently available methodologies require a relevant expertise and time for their application, which is only partially possible in most scenarios. In the present study, an integrated approach to environmental risk assessment in the transport of hazardous substances (iTRANSRISK) was developed. The approach proposed is based on the principle of index-based assessment of leakage scenarios involving toxic and flammable substances during transport, in the context of indexing environmental vulnerability. The key point of the method is the conversion of local-specific data concerning the risk potential of the transported substance, the consequences and the probability of a major accident, and environmental vulnerability assessment into a single entity. The created integral approach is proposed for the needs of carriers of the hazardous substances and the state administration bodies. The proposed approach is determined for the screening risk assessment at the beginning of the process of the planning a suitable transport routes and the results are for information only. An example of the application of the iTRANSRISK integrated approach is demonstrated considering an explosion scenario following a propane tanker leak (18 t) in a forested area, with moderately susceptible soils and no surface water or groundwater affected.

Weight of Evidence Approach to Maritime Accident Risk Assessment Based on Bayesian Network Classifier

Probabilistic maritime accident models based on Bayesian Networks are typically built upon the data available in accident records and the data obtained from human experts knowledge on accident. The drawback of such models is that they do not take explicitly into the account the knowledge on non-accidents as would be required in the probabilistic modelling of rare events. Consequently, these models have difficulties with delivering interpretation of influence of risk factors and providing sufficient confidence in the risk assessment scores. In this work, modelling and risk score interpretation, as two aspects of the probabilistic approach to complex maritime system risk assessment, are addressed. First, the maritime accident modelling is posed as a classification problem and the Bayesian network classifier that discriminates between accident and non-accident is developed which assesses state spaces of influence factors as the input features of the classifier. Maritime accident risk are identified as adversely influencing factors that contribute to the accident. Next, the weight of evidence approach to reasoning with Bayesian network classifier is developed for an objective quantitative estimation of the strength of factor influence, and a weighted strength of evidence is introduced. Qualitative interpretation of strength of evidence for individual accident influencing factor, inspired by Bayes factor, is defined. The efficiency of the developed approach is demonstrated within the context of collision of small passenger vessels and the results of collision risk assessments are given for the environmental settings typical in Croatian nautical tourism. According to the results obtained, recommendations for navigation safety during high density traffic have been distilled.

Gray relational analysis based assessment of escalator accident risk in subway stations

In order to better achieve active defense in the escalator risk management, this study based on the vulnerability theory, task driven theory, management error theory, proposed a Gray Relational Analysis (GRA) based fuzzy assessment of escalator accident risk approach. The risk assessment index system of subway station escalator accident was constructed based on the commonness and essence of management defects; the weight of risk index was calculated scientifically and reasonably by using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP); escalator accident risk was evaluated by the combination of GRA and Fuzzy approach. The results show that escalator equipment, environment, safety knowledge of riders are all in good condition in the station. However, ‘Maintenance’ of escalator in the Beijing subway station is in an extremely high risk level. The contributions of this studies are: (1) general risk elements analysis model for escalator accidents which enable to compose any risk factor possible to induce escalator accident in subway station; (2) GRA based risk assessment approach can avoid the problem when expend the range to left and right. It can also judge whether the continuous improvement effect of the object is significant by the difference degree of each risk level before and after.

Definition and mathematical expression on instability domain of safety event and safety structure

Dynamic risk assessment is a main research task of process safety. One of the main methods of dynamic risk assessment is to measure the distance between the real-time state and its threshold (dangerous state). Due to the influence of temperature, pressure and other factors, the dangerous state will often be expanded into a “dangerous range” of states. At present, most of the “dangerous range” are determined subjectively or according to experiences. Based on the safety structure theory, instability domain as the scientific term of "dangerous range" is proposed, and then its mathematical expression is developed in this paper. The safety structure composed of an atomic activity factor (AAF) and an atomic environmental factor (AEF) is regarded as the smallest unit to analyze safety issues in safety structure theory. When the state of a safety structure falls into its instability domain, the state of intrinsic factor will fall into the instability domain of the safety event. This is a sufficient condition to cause an accident. In this paper, the attribute of intrinsic factor about a safety event is determined by developing the performance extension membership function of the intrinsic factor, thus the mathematical expression on instability domain of the safety event is established. Taking the instability domain of safety event as the domain of the inverse mapping of state relationship functions among environmental factors, and then the mathematical expression on atomic environmental instability domain (AEID) of safety structure is established. Taking AEID as domain of the inverse mapping of state relationship function between AAF and AEF, thus the mathematical expression on atomic activity instability domain (AAID) of safety structure is established. The instability domain of safety structure is composed of AEID and AAID together. The mathematical expression on instability domains can provide theoretical basis for the dynamic risk assessment, prediction and active control of safety accidents.

Quantitative risk assessment of gas leakage and explosion accidents and its security measures in open kitchens

In this study, a quantitative risk assessment methodology is developed for gas leakage and explosion accidents in open kitchens. Meanwhile, the corresponding security measures are investigated. The physical and computational model of a typical open kitchen and the corresponding traditional kitchen is firstly developed, using CFD code FLACS, respectively. Based on the similarity principle, a small scale low-pressure natural gas leakage and explosion experiment platform like a kitchen was constructed to validate the accuracy of CFD model. Subsequently, gas leakage and dispersion behavior is performed to analyze the gas concentration distribution. Meanwhile, a time-of-exposure model is introduced to calculate the overall ignition probability during the whole gas leakage and dispersion process. And then, the explosion simulation with a real inhomogeneous flammable gas cloud is carried out to analyze the overpressure distribution. In addition, the maximum weighted average overpressure is estimated accurately. According to the overall ignition probability and the maximum weighted average overpressure, the integrated risk caused by gas leakage and explosion accidents is assessed. Furthermore, the active and passive security measures are investigated to reduce the integrated risk in open kitchens. This methodology and its security measures are applied to a typical open kitchen, located in Harbin, China. The results show that the simulation results reproduced by the CFD model are in good agreement with the experimental results. The explosion accident probability in open kitchens is much higher than that in traditional kitchens, whereas the explosion accident consequences in open kitchens are less than that in traditional kitchens. The integrated risk in open kitchens is greater than that in traditional kitchens. These achievements provide an effective theoretical guidance and technical support for safety gas supply design of open kitchens.

Risk assessment of offshore fire accidents caused by subsea gas release

Subsea gas release is an industrial hazard that can impose fire hazards on offshore facilities near the gas surfacing area. However, risk assessment of the fire caused by subsea gas release is challenged due to inadequate recognition of the knowledge of subsea gas release mechanism and resulting hazards. At present, minimal researches involving risk assessment of offshore fire resulting from a subsea gas release were reported, and this paper is an extension of the previous works on subsea gas behavior. This paper focuses on modeling fire risk on offshore facilities due to subsea gas release. A numerical simulation is carried out using the Computational Fluid Dynamic technique of Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) to analyze fire propagation characteristics and assess the impact of fire on personnel and assets. A probit model is adopted to calculate the probabilities of injury or death caused by fire hazards. This study also investigates the effect of wind speed, gas release rate and the distance between gas pool and platform on fire impacts and casualty probabilities. The present study can support safety measure design to mitigate or avoid the impacts of offshore fire events from subsea gas release.

Estimation of hazardous concentration of toluene in the terrestrial ecosystem through the species sensitivity distribution approach

Toluene is a highly flammable and commonly used industrial chemical with severe health consequences on humans upon exposure and ingestion. In this study, multispecies bioassays were conducted using a species sensitivity distribution approach to determine acute and chronic hazardous concentrations of toluene in soil. Acute and chronic toluene toxicity tests were conducted with seven soil species from four taxonomic groups. The results from the toxicity tests were used to estimate the acute and chronic HC5 (hazardous concentration for 5 % of species) of toluene in the terrestrial environment at 58.9 (5.4–639.6) mg kg−1 and 2.2 (0.2–19.8) mg kg−1, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to estimate the hazardous concentration of toluene in soil by conducting a battery of bioassays. These values can be used as references for the environmental risk assessment of chemical accidents involving toluene and estimating its impact on soil to protect the terrestrial environment.

Traffic Accident Risk Assessment Framework for Qassim, Saudi Arabia: Evaluating the Impact of Speed Cameras

Saudi Arabia is one of the countries with the highest number of road accidents and associated fatalities in the world. Speeding has been identified as an important cause of increased traffic accidents, which also aggravate their severity. Road safety improvement strategies are primarily based on the accurate identification of accident hotspots. Installing speed cameras at a network level is an expensive road safety measure, and its spatiotemporal effectiveness should be assessed. In this study, a traffic accident risk assessment framework has been developed and implemented on the 84 km long Buraydah Ring Road in the Qassim region of Saudi Arabia. The selected highway was divided into 42 (×2 km long) segments using the ArcGIS software. A risk scoring scheme was developed to incorporate both the frequency and severity of road accidents. Speed cameras installation at various segments showed a 70% decline in total accident counts, 53% in accidents with property damage, 84% decline in accidents causing injury, and complete absence of accidents with fatalities. The 48% segments were identified as hotspots with risk level ≥ medium, while the speed cameras installation completely eliminated the hotspots from the study area. The proposed framework can be implemented on major high-speed highways, accommodating high traffic volumes, for hotspot identification and evaluation of various road safety measures in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

Determination of a safety criterion via risk assessment of marine accidents based on a Markov model with five states and MCMC simulation and on three risk factors

Risk modeling of marine accidents involves many technical and environmental safety factors which cannot be predicted in advance. The aim of this paper is to determine a safety criterion via risk assessment of marine accidents for a certain sea area. The risk is assessed with a combination of two approaches: one is based on a Markov model and MCMC simulation, and the other on three risk factors. On the one hand, the state space of the Markov model consists of five states considering major accident types and its transition rates are obtained by MCMC simulation. On the other hand, accident occurrence probabilities are modeled based on the accident frequencies according to three risk factors—sea state, traffic density and ship's length, respectively. The risk value is estimated as a weighted average of results from the two approaches. The safety criterion for navigation is determined based on a set of risk values obtained from the historical accident data for the sea area. The proposed method is illustrated with a numerical example, performing a sensitivity analysis and comparing the safety criterion with risk values for the accidents. The comparing results are in good agreement.

Evidence based risk analysis of fire and explosion accident scenarios in FPSOs

The paper proposes a methodology for risk assessment and probabilistic modelling of fire and explosion accidents in Floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) units. The overall objective of the paper is to propose a Bayesian Network probabilistic framework towards quantification of fire and explosion events in FPSOs derived from a systematic analysis of incidental and accidental scenarios specific to FPSOs. A data set of around 800 incidents in FPSOs from various open-source agencies is prepared and analysed. The key features of the incidents are discussed and the relationships amongst the significant variables influencing the types of incidents are assessed. The circumstances of potential incidents related to fire and explosions are discussed. A detailed risk analysis is conducted using the risk matrix approach to screen and rank the major accidents occurring in FPSOs. Then, a Bayesian Network model of high-risk fire and explosion scenarios is developed based on evidences obtained from accident reports and expert opinions. The model uses a framework based on immediate causes, basic causes and causal factors to demonstrate various accidental scenarios specific to FPSOs. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to identify the most important causal factors and the aspects that need more research work for decision-making. The contribution of the present study is threefold: a methodology for comprehensive risk assessment in FPSOs is proposed; FPSO specific incidents and accidents are characterized; a probabilistic model for fire and explosion scenarios is developed from a causal framework. The results of the paper provide FPSO developers and operators with information to prevent and mitigate fire and explosion accidents.

Risk Assessment of LNG Ship Navigation in Inland Water Based on FAHP-cloud Model

In order to understand the navigation safety risks of LNG ships in inland waterways, the paper combines the general accident risk assessment and the specific navigation environment of inland rivers[1], and analyzes the probability of collision accidents[9]. Combined with the characteristics of the specific navigation environment, to construct a hierarchical model of the risk factors for the navigation safety of inland LNG ships. Set the entry channel in the Dongsha operation area of Zhang jiagang Port area as the research scene, use the FAHP (fuzzy analytic hierarchy) process to determine the weight value of each navigation risk factor, use the cloud model to quantify the conversion of qualitative risk factors[13], quantitatively evaluate the risk level of risk factor indicators, and combine qualitative analysis to analyze the risk level of the approach channel in the Dongsha operation area from a quantitative perspective. The result objectively demonstrated the risk level of the channel, and verified that the evaluation result conforms to reality.

사고 데이터의 불확실성을 고려한 해양사고 위험도 분석 및 인적오류 중심의 사고원인 분석에 관한 연구

Objective: The purpose of this study is to modify quantitative risk assessment of the maritime accident using the risk matrix considering uncertainty of the data and to figure out the main cause through all types of maritime accident.BRBRBackground: Maritime accidents happen not frequently but it causes severe consequences such as human losses, economic losses and environmental damage. It has negative impacts on the level of national safety and national competitiveness. Although Korean government makes huge efforts to decrease the number of maritime accidents through the mitigation policy, unfortunately recent maritime accidents are not declining, resulting in fatality and economic losses. In the research field, it is necessary to consider the risk assessment criteria based on the quantitative analysis of the maritime accidents. Also, to increase effectiveness of the mitigation policy, first we focus on the cause related to human error.BRBRMethod: In the study, (ⅰ) we modify the existing risk matrix considering uncertainty of the data set in order to get more concrete results and suggest the practical risk assessment criteria. (ⅱ) In the analysis on the cause of the accident, first we calculate the rate of occurrence from each cause of the different accident type and find out the main cause by each accident type. Secondly, we figure out the reason which causes various accident types.BRBRResults: By applying the criteria of the modified risk matrix, it is possible to interpret the results as more sensitive considering uncertainty of the data set. And the main cause of each accident type and common cause of the maritime accident are due to human error.BRBRConclusion: Quantitative risk assessment using the modified risk matrix, and cause analysis can suggest well-founded risk mitigation measures and improve the performance of the accident mitigation policy.BRBRApplication: It may help the policy maker to make appropriate mitigation measure and apply to other fields as the objective risk assessment criteria.