Resilience assessment of chemical industrial areas during Natech-related cascading multi-hazards

Resilience assessment of chemical industrial areas during Natech-related cascading multi-hazards

Zeng, Tao (South China University of Technology; Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Collaborative Innovation Center for Work Safety)
Chen, Guohua (South China University of Technology; Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Collaborative Innovation Center for Work Safety)
Reniers, G.L.L.M.E. (TU Delft Safety and Security Science; Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Universiteit Antwerpen)
Hu, Kun (South China University of Technology; Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Collaborative Innovation Center for Work Safety)

2023

In chemical industrial areas, technological accidents triggered by natural events (Natech events) may escalate. Complex cascading multi-hazard scenarios with high uncertainties may be caused. Resilience is an essential property of a system to withstand and recover from disruptive events. The present study focuses on the change of the resilience level due to (possible) interactions between cascading hazards, chemical installations and safety barriers during the dynamic evolution of fire escalations triggered by a natural hazard (certain cascading multi-hazard scenarios). A quantitative resilience assessment method is developed to this end. The state transition of a system facing accidents in the context of resilience is explored. Moreover, the uncertainties accompanying an accident evolution are quantified using a Dynamic Bayesian Network, allowing a detailed analysis of the system performance in different time steps. System resilience is measured as a time-dependent function with respect to the change of system performance. The applicability of the proposed methodology is demonstrated by a case study, and the effects of different configurations of safety barriers on improving resilience are discussed. The results are valuable to support disaster prevention within chemical industrial areas.

Cascading multi-hazard
Escalation
Natech event
Resilience
Safety barrier

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:4b372e6a-c0dc-4c1a-b5f6-27a20830a2ff

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jlp.2022.104967

2023-07-07

0950-4230

Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries: the international journal of chemical and process plant safety, 81

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2023 Tao Zeng, Guohua Chen, G.L.L.M.E. Reniers, Kun Hu