Integrating process safety and process security risk management is increasingly essential for enhancing resilience in the chemical process industry. This study addresses how practitioners perceive the integration of these two domains, identifying key benefits, barriers, and strategies for effective implementation. A mixed-methods approach was applied, combining quantitative survey data from 47 industry professionals with qualitative insights from open-ended responses. The findings highlight significant advantages of integration, such as optimized resource use, reduced operational redundancies, and improved risk management. However, barriers such as knowledge gaps, resource constraints, and communication silos were identified. Respondents emphasized the importance of adopting a resilience-oriented approach involving proactive risk management, continuous improvement, and adaptability in both safety and security practices. Critical enablers for integration include strong leadership, alignment of societal values, cross-disciplinary training, and integrated risk assessment methodologies. Emerging technologies and regulatory alignment were also identified as critical factors in facilitating integration. The study contributes to the theoretical understanding of integrated risk management by supporting resilience engineering and systems theory. It offers actionable strategies for overcoming barriers and leveraging enablers, laying the groundwork for developing a resilience-oriented framework for process safety and process security risk management.@en

The rapid industrialization and urbanization in China require a high level of safety management and thus urge the development of safety risk assessment in China. In the past two decades, many safety risk assessment research findings have been published in international journals by Chinese scholars, while it is not clear the development progress and China's contributions to the world in this research field. Therefore, a systematic and thorough literature review is conducted to investigate risk assessment research in China. Firstly, the research publications authored by Chinese scholars are searched from the well-known literature database Web of Science to support the analysis of risk assessment research in China. Secondly, a bibliometric analysis is conducted for the obtained literature related to risk assessment research in China to find out publication trends, research organizations, research authors, research topics, and research methods. Then, a thorough analysis of research topics and research methods is carried out to present the research progress. Finally, possible future research issues in the risk assessment research domain are discussed based on this literature review. According to the discussion, more attention in China should be paid to the risk of digital or autonomous systems, the risk related to extreme events, and the risk in large cities.

@en

If a fire occurs in an area with multiple installations storing or handling flammable materials, it may escalate from one installation to another to form so-called domino effects. The propagation of fire-induced domino effects has temporal properties due to the heating effect of the thermal radiation of fires. Under the action of thermal radiation, the surrounding installations may be damaged, and the probability of damage can be estimated by Probit models. As a result, the propagation path exhibits characteristics of randomness. As new installations catch fire due to domino effects, the thermal radiation received by a target installation changes, so that the damage probability changes dynamically throughout the accident process. This study aims at further improve the previous study of the matrix modeling approach for fire-induced domino effects by considering the heating process of facilities under fire accidents. The analysis process incorporating the damage probability calculation algorithm is presented. The improved approach is illustrated by the study of two cases.

@en

In recent years, nature-induced urban disasters in high-density modern cities in China have raised great concerns. The delayed and imprecise understanding of the real-time post-disaster situation made it difficult for the decision-makers to find a suitable emergency rescue plan. To this end, this study aims to facilitate the real-time performance and accuracy of on-site victim risk identification. In this article, we propose a victim identification model based on the You Only Look Once v7-W6 (YOLOv7-W6) algorithm. This model defines the “fall-down” pose as a key feature in identifying urgent victims from the perspective of disaster medicine rescue. The results demonstrate that this model performs superior accuracy (mAP@0.5, 0.960) and inference speed (5.1 ms) on the established disaster victim database compared to other state-of-the-art object detection algorithms. Finally, a case study is illustrated to show the practical utilization of this model in a real disaster rescue scenario. This study proposes an intelligent on-site victim risk identification approach, contributing significantly to government emergency decision-making and response.

@en

Fire accidents in oil tank farms can trigger domino effects, leading to multiple tank fires with catastrophic consequences. Preventing losses in large-scale tank farms requires a dynamic assessment of fire-induced domino accidents. Existing research often focuses on calculating the time to failure (TTF) of storage tanks but overlooks the influence of failure modes. This study develops numerical models to explore failure modes of oil storage tanks with uniform and stepwise walls exposed to thermal radiation. Factors such as the flame heights of combustion tank, adjacent spacings, wall thickness, and tank volumes are considered. The numerical model employs a solid double-layer flame model to determine thermal radiation intensity and temperature, followed by a dynamic stress–strain and buckling analysis to obtain time to buckling (TTB) and time to yielding (TTY). If TTB < TTY, the failure model is buckling; otherwise, the failure model is yielding. Results indicate that failure modes in nonuniform thermal fields include buckling and yielding, with stepwise walls favoring buckling and uniform walls favoring yielding. When the wall thickness is below the critical value, failure is yielding; otherwise, it is buckling. These findings support risk management and emergency response for fire-induced domino effects in oil tank farms.

@en

Risk is a complex and multi-faceted concept defined and addressed differently across disciplines. Recent years have seen a growing recognition of the need for a more comprehensive and integrated risk perspective combining insights from various disciplines. However, those works have rarely been analyzed in literature reviews. This article explores the possible way of advancing how we assess and manage risks by reviewing the theories, approaches, models, and other fundamental aspects of different disciplines relevant to risk concepts. Additionally, we compare the origins, connections, and differences between state-of-the-art risk science and risk concept research in various disciplines. Some suggestions and future directions are provided for improving risk assessment. This paper helps to deepen the understanding of the risk concept and advance the development of the risk management arena.@en

Frequent unpredictable earthquake disasters such as the Turkey Earthquake in 2023 pose an increasing threat to oil tank farms since they may trigger major accidents and domino effects, resulting in casualties, economic losses, and environmental pollution. Unpredictable earthquakes are definitely difficult to prevent and thus resilience strategies such as emergency response should be applied to reduce losses. However, little attention has been paid to the quantitative resilience modeling of oil tank farms, resulting in difficulties in decision-making on resilience assessment and management. Therefore, this study proposes a quantitative seismic resilience model of oil storage tanks by using a dynamic agent-based modeling approach. This approach models the storage tank, active fault, and the environment as three independent agents with their attributes and behaviors. The interaction between agents can also be modeled through disaster evolution rules, and the consequences of interactions can be adjusted through adaptation and recovery strategies. The dynamic propagation of earthquake accidents and the evolution of potential domino effects can be quantified from a bottom-up perspective, thereby quantifying the seismic resilience of oil tank farms. A case study is carried out to illustrate the application of the developed model in oil tank farms and to analyze the sensitivity of different model parameters. The results show that the developed model can dynamically characterize the evolution of earthquake-induced domino effects as well as the emergency and restoration processes, supporting the decision-making on the allocation of resilience measures.

@en

When a major chemical accident occurs, emergency response is an important measure to reduce accident losses. Some actions in an emergency response may be more important than others in reducing accident losses, so they need to be carried out as a matter of priority. The impact of the number of emergency personnel on the relationship between emergency response actions and time of emergency response process is analyzed in this paper in the circumstance that the number of responders is not enough to carry out emergency actions with priority at the same time, and a Petri-net based approach is proposed to model and analyze the actions. An emergency response action that needs to consider its priority is divided into two stages, one is to determine the personnel for executing the action, the other is the execution of the action. This division facilitates the handling of dynamic changes in the relationship between actions and differences in start time of the actions. The approach is illustrated by taking the emergency response of on-site emergency personnel of a chemical plant to a fire as an example. The efficiency of the emergency process is analyzed, and for the action of rescuing the wounded, which has the highest priority in the example, the time and the probability when considering the priority of emergency response actions are compared with those when not considering the priority.

@en

Industrial production intensification greatly enhances resource utilization efficiency and production efficiency within the modern petrochemical industry (MPI). However, densely located hazardous installations pose significant threats to workers, society and environment. Under this impetus, an advanced pareto-based optimization methodology is proposed for chemical tank farm (CTF) design. The objectives of domino risk minimization and land resource utilization efficiency maximization can be achieved through optimizing the locations and dimensions of storage tanks. A simplified quantitative domino risk assessment procedure is developed within a grid-based Cartesian coordinate system, which links the design parameters and risk values. A bi-objective optimization model is developed for problem formulation and a well-designed simulated annealing-based multi-objective particle swarm optimization is proposed for model solving. A CTF with six floating roof diesel tanks is adopted for case study. The simulated annealing-based jumping mechanism can effectively avoid the local optimum, which makes the algorithm easier to obtain the trade-off with great convergence and diversity. The proposed methodology can provide safer and more cost-effective design solutions. Results indicate that the design parameters can significantly affect the regional domino risk distribution. The conflicting nature between safety and economy is discussed. This work is of great significance for the safety and reliability of MPI.

@en

This paper presents a systematic literature review of risk assessment methods in the chemical process industry (CPI), focusing on process safety, process security, and resilience. We analyzed peer-reviewed articles from 2000 to 2022 using the PRISMA methodology and identified twelve predominant methods. Our findings reveal a shift towards dynamic, systemic-based assessments like the Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM) and System-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP). These methods are particularly effective at capturing the complexities of sociotechnical systems in the CPI. However, a significant observation from our review is the limited emphasis on the resilience paradigm within many existing methods when addressing both process safety and process security risks, which is crucial for preventing and recovering from disruptions. Given the evolving challenges in system safety and security threats, there is an urgent need for holistic methods that integrate process safety, process security, and resilience. Our review highlights the opportunity for further research to better prepare the industry for future challenges, ensuring safer, more secure, reliable, and resilient operations.

@en

Risk-based techniques such as risk graph and Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) are used to determine the Safety Integrity Level (SIL) of safety instrumented functions to ensure that risk is reduced to a tolerable level. However, these techniques have some drawbacks. For instance, they need absolute and precise numbers to evaluate SIL parameters, which are rarely available or are highly uncertain. In addition, they are incapable of considering individual and societal risks simultaneously. Moreover, risk tolerance criteria are likely to be used incorrectly in the LOPA technique, and risk graph is difficult to calibrate. In the current paper, a novel comprehensive fuzzy arithmetic model has been developed to determine the required SILs in process industries. The fuzzy required Risk Reduction Factor (RRF) is calculated for both individual and societal risks. Fuzzy numbers are developed from crisp intervals, based on the expected interval of the fuzzy numbers. Expert fuzzy-scaled elicitation has been applied to obtain the SIL parameters. In the proposed model, the overall risk tolerance criterion and apportionment factor are defined as SIL parameters for both individual and societal risks to ensure that the applied risk criteria are compliant with the requirements of the system. In addition, an approach is introduced for determining the required SIL based on the fuzzy required RRF. The proposed methodology was demonstrated to alleviate the limitations, and thus, can be considered as a more precise alternative to the conventional methods.

@en

Emergency response is a procedural safety barrier of paramount importance for the mitigation of fire scenarios and the prevention of escalation. However, in Natech scenarios, emergency response may be affected by the natural event impacting the site. Indeed, when contrasting Natech accidents, emergency responders have to face both the natural event and the cascading technological scenario. Despite the criticality of the issue, limited attention was devoted to date to the analysis of emergency response in cascading sequences triggered by natural events. The present study provides a novel and technically sound methodology to assess the performance of emergency response and the required intervention time in Natech scenarios. An expert survey combined with a Bayesian Network model was used to assess the performance of the emergency response. The routing and setup phases were identified as those mostly affected by natural events. Monte Carlo simulations were used to obtain baseline data and specific probability distributions for the time required to carry out the emergency response considering the factors that may hinder the response during natural events. In Natech accidents, the time for effective mitigation resulted higher of at least a factor 2 with respect to that expected in the case of conventional accidents. The methodology developed may be used to support the improvement of the emergency management of Natech scenarios, allowing for a detailed definition of site-specific emergency response plans. Moreover, the results may be used to provide a more accurate assessment of the fire-driven escalation probability in Natech events.

@en

An earthquake-triggered fire domino scenario (E-FDS) is an example of a typical multi-hazard coupling event. The seismic damage can affect the fire resistance of engineering structures, leading to significant mutually amplified phenomena. In this work, a two-stage experimental program is designed to expound the earthquake-fire coupling failure mechanism of steel cylindrical tanks (SCTs). Quasi-static tests are adopted to simulate the damage characteristics of SCTs under seismic excitation (Stage I). Fire tests are adopted to investigate the fire-resistance performance of pre-damaged SCTs (Stage II). The influences of seismic damage on the fire resistance of SCTs are particularly of interest. Three potential seismic damage degrees are considered. The experimental results show that tank specimens exhibit typical diamond-shaped buckling after Stage I. The coupling failure analysis of SCTs is conducted through sequential thermodynamic coupling simulations. Due to factors such as geometric deformation, residual stress, and thermal radiation absorption capacity, the fire resistance of SCTs is significantly attenuated by seismic damage. For the three damage states, fire resistance time attenuation coefficients (0.868, 0.716, 0.511) and critical temperature attenuation coefficients (0.910, 0.779, 0.672) were obtained. This work provides pivotal insights into the mutually amplified phenomena in E-FDSs.

@en

Risk assessment can reveal the level of a safety situation which can be very important info for company safety management. Considering the multiple factors in risk assessment of a system and the vagueness nature of many factors, and using the benefits of the Petri-net in modeling and reasoning, a weighted fuzzy Petri-net (WFPN) based risk assessment approach which combines WFPN with the SPA-fuzzy method is proposed in this paper. The SPA-fuzzy method is utilized to establish the membership functions for fuzzy assessment, taking its advantage in comparing identity, contrary and discrepancy features of two different sets. In this study, the WFPN is redefined to model relationships between assessment factors, and the matrix-based fuzzy reasoning algorithm is provided to assess the factors in parallel. The application of the proposed risk assessment approach is illustrated by case studies: the risk assessment of a chemical storage tank area and the ignition accident assessment of hydrogen refueling stations.

@en

This research explores how process safety and process security risk management methods may be integrated into a unified framework, thereby considering the resilience engineering paradigm. Employing a systematic literature review and expert surveys with industrial practitioners alongside representatives from key regulatory bodies to understand the complexities and opportunities of such integration. The interactions that result from a mixed-method study ensure the gaining of insights into the practical challenges and opportunities of integration in diverse operational and regulatory environments. Utilizing Microsoft Forms analytics tools and ATLAS.ti for qualitative analysis, the research identifies patterns and conditions, as well as the context, which is pivotal for constructing a comprehensive, adaptable risk management framework. This paper introduces a novel, holistic risk management perspective, advocating for the amalgamation of process safety and process security within the chemical industry, adopting the System-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP) model underscored by resilience principles.

@en

Ammonia is a promising fuel for marine propulsion and generation, yet its acute toxicity and associated safety challenges necessitate careful consideration. Current regulations recognize the hazards of ammonia, introducing numerous technical safety measures in response. However, the effectiveness of these measures in ensuring acceptable risk levels for future vessels remains to be fully assessed. This study estimates the risk level onboard ammonia-powered ships, identifying the aspects with the largest and controllable influence on it. Three hypothetical concepts of ammonia fuel supply were developed in this study on an example tanker vessel and analyzed using the quantitative risk assessment (QRA) methodology. The obtained risk profiles were evaluated against the risks by an equivalent liquefied natural gas-fueled system, serving as a benchmark. The results demonstrate that ammonia-fueled ships exhibit individual risk levels for engineering crew with periodic duties in fuel preparation rooms (FPR), or similar compartments, which are 1–1.5 orders of magnitude higher than those observed for a conventional gas-fueled alternative. An analogous increase has been noted for the public potentially present onboard or in proximity. The study underscores the importance of managing human-machine interactions, enhancing the reliability of supply systems, and managing the systems’ complexity to mitigate risks in FPRs. Regarding public safety, the analysis highlights new risk mechanisms introduced by ammonia and examines how storage conditions affect exposure levels. By offering a detailed QRA framework, this research contributes to the development of effective risk management strategies for ammonia-powered ships.

@en

To maintain continuous production, chemical plant operators may ignore faults or handle faults online rather than shutting down process systems. However, interaction and interdependence links between components in a digitalized process system are substantial. Thus, faults will be propagated to downstream nodes, potentially leading to risk accumulation and major accidents. However, limited attention has been paid to this type of risk. To model the risk accumulation process, a dynamic risk assessment method is proposed by integrating the system-theoretic accident model and process approach (STAMP) and the cascading failure propagation model (CFPM). Firstly, STAMP is used to model and analyze the system safety of a process system. Two CFPMs are then proposed to measure risk accumulation under two different engineering situations. The proposed method is applied to the Chevron Richmond refinery crude unit and its associated upstream process. The results show that the proposed approach can effectively quantify the process of risk accumulation. This method can generate a real-time dynamic risk profile to support auxiliary decision-making.

@en

Major accidents in the chemical process industry occur with low frequency but may lead to severe damages affecting a myriad of stakeholders. Managing major accident risks of chemical industrial systems is regulated in the Seveso Directive of the European Union. However, the conventional risk assessment mainly focuses on the objective aspects of risks and lacks in incorporating public concerns and context-related issues. Aiming to overcome this limitation and enhance the public’s engagement and trust in risk assessment and management, the present study built an integrated risk index for ranking risks considering both technical aspects and societal concerns. A hypothetical case-study is used to demonstrate the application of the proposed risk index. At last, the outcomes of using the integrated risk index and the conventional risk assessment approach are compared and discussed.@en

Fire-induced domino effect is one of the main threats to hazardous material storage tanks, and many attempts have been conducted to assess the vulnerability of storage tanks exposed to fire to evaluate domino effect risk. However, past research ignored the influence of wind load on the thermal buckling behavior of storage tanks exposed to fire, which may underestimate the risk of exposed tanks. This paper thus conducts a numerical simulation of the thermal buckling behavior of steel vertical dome storage tanks under the synergistic effect of static wind loads and thermal effects. The effects of wind parameters and heat radiation parameters on the thermal post-buckling behavior and the time to failure (ttf) of storage tanks are investigated to analyze the synergistic effects of fire and wind loads. By comparing the circumferential and meridional stresses before and after the thermal post-buckling stage, it is found that under the disturbing effect of the positive wind pressure load, the thermal post-buckling of the tanks on downwind occurs earlier and more severe. Besides, the effects of wind angle, fire location height, and diameter on buckling damage were investigated. The comparative analysis of different scenarios shows that the tanks in the windy scenario are more prone to thermal post-buckling, and the deformation is intensified, with an increased likelihood of failure.

@en

In the built environment, often too much focus is put on compliance instead of seeking the optimal fire-safety solution for the building. Because of a lack of tangible incentives for building owners, the benefits of implementing fire safety measures and their societal contribution are often not recognized and therefore, not considered. By means of a literature review and a survey, we have indicated necessary fire-safety related attributes and tool features and analyzed the currently available fire risk assessment tools. This study shows that a limited number of these tools can provide a partial fire risk analysis of a building. A total of 26 tools were found. No tools were found that included all the identified fire consequence-related attributes to ensure fire-safe buildings. However, we did identify 11 tools that have the potential to assess between 32 % and 52 % of the found attributes of building fire safety. To stimulate the development of such tools, this paper provides 12 factors by which to assess fire risk assessment tools – quantifying the overall ‘quality’ of the assessment tool – which can incentivize industry to refine the existing ones with enhanced predictability of the potential consequences of fire incidents. @en