1,720,976 research outputs found
A Dynamic Approach to Fault Tree Analysis based on Bayesian Beliefs Networks
No full textAccording to the Seveso Directives, the risk assessment is crucial for an effective control of major accident hazard. Nevertheless, the complexity of many Seveso sites, due to human, technical and organizational factors makes recognized common practices limited because of their intrinsic static nature. In this paper, a dynamic approach for risk assessment is proposed, which allows evaluating moment by moment the state of the system under analysis by Bayesian belief networks. A petrochemical coastal storage was selected as applicative case-study to verify the capability of the dynamic approach. Network training is performed by entering historical reliability data, near-miss and accidents data series collected on-site by periodical inspection plans on critical elements, as well as from the evidences of SMS reports. Upon proper refinement and further validation with reliable field data, the predictive approach may be used as a management decision-making tool
Application of RFID technology for supporting effective risk management in chemical warehouses
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The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the safety management in Italian Seveso industries
No full textThe paper discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Italian chemical and process industries, where Directive 2012/18/EU Seveso III, for the control of Major Accident Hazard (MAH), is enforced. The Safety Management System (SMS) for the control of MAH, which has been mandatory for 20 years in Italian Seveso Establishments, has been highly stressed by the external pressure, related in some way to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fairly, most companies, in particular in oil and gas sectors, have demonstrated an adequate capability to reconcile operation continuity and health requirements. This experience is providing the establishment operators and the regulators with valuable suggestions for the improvements of the SMS-MAH. Within this framework, an innovative organisational resilience model is proposed, aiming at the development of a higher capability to face future new crisis. The current SMS-MAH already includes some basic pillars to enhance resilience, which were valuable during the pandemic crisis, but a full and rationale development is still needed. Starting from the first pandemic phase experience, this paper presents a novel tool to assess the degree of “resilience” of a SMS-MAH. It is based on a questionnaire, featuring 25 questions grouped into eight items, according to the typical SMS-MAH structure. A two level AHP model has been developed in order to define the weights to be assigned to each point. The AHP panel included industrial practitioners, regulators, authorities and researchers. The results are based on the COVID-19 experience and consequently the developed model is tailored to face health emergencies, but the approach may be easily transferred to other external crises
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Valutazione dei Rischi e degli Effetti per la Salute delle Popolazioni Connessi agli Scenari di Contaminazione Ambientale.
No full textControl of Plant Ageing at Seveso Sites: Achievements in Research and Transfer to Current Practice
No full textThis paper addresses the issue of "ageing", which for over a decade has been recognised as one the most relevant causes of accidents in chemical and oil industries. The EU Legislation explicitly mentions to manage ageing in the Directive Seveso III. Following the implementation of the Directive in national legislations, regulators had a few initiatives, including the publication of guidelines and recommended practices. Yet ageing is a very complex issue involving both technical and organizational factors. The greatest concern is the integrity of static containment systems, including pipes and vessels, where rupture may cause major losses of hazardous materials. Dynamic containment systems, including rotating machinery, are also important. The paper discusses a few practical solutions adopted by regulators in Europe, focusing on Italy and the Netherlands. Since 2018, Italian Authorities require the inspectors in charge to evaluate the adequateness of the ageing control programs of upper-tier Seveso sites by means of a codified protocol. The method has been developed with the collaboration of Regulators, Academia, and Industry. In three and more years of application, essential data about plant ageing of hundreds of Seveso sites were collected. This allowed a first statistical balance of ageing of Italian sites, as well as an assessment of the effectiveness of the Italian method. In order to place it in a broader context, these results are compared with related methods and findings about ageing in the Netherlands, obtained from investigated accidents 2004-2018
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