537 research outputs found
The Effect of Safety Barrier Degradation on the Severity of Primary Natech Scenarios
Get PDFThe impact of natural events on technological infrastructures may lead to severe accident scenarios involving hazardous materials, generating the so-called Natech events. This typology of accidents is particularly critical since, besides damaging process or storage equipment items, natural hazards might concurrently impair safety barriers implemented to prevent and mitigate technological scenarios, reducing the overall safety of the system and increasing the likelihood of unmitigated outcomes and domino effects. In this study, a novel methodology to perform the quantitative risk assessment of the primary Natech scenarios directly caused by the impact of natural hazards considering the presence of safety barriers with depleted performance is proposed. A multi-level approach is tailored to assess the performance modification of safety systems designed to mitigate the primary technological scenarios. An innovative procedure for the quantitative assessment of these scenarios is proposed to enable the characterization of the final outcomes considered in the quantitative risk assessment accounting for depleted barrier performance. A case study is developed to demonstrate the application of the methodology, evidencing a relevant increase in risk compared to that assessed considering the baseline performance of safety systems. The proposed methodology thus enables a more comprehensive assessment of the final outcomes of primary Natech events, fostering the development of a holistic framework for Natech quantitative risk assessment
Modelling standoff distances to prevent escalation in shooting attacks to tanks storing hazardous materials
Get PDFIndustrial equipment storing hazardous substances can be the target of intentional malicious attacks causing escalation scenarios involving the release of flammable and/or toxic material with severe consequences on people, assets, and the environment. In the present study, a novel modelling approach was developed to assess the baseline values of standoff distances for atmospheric and pressurized storage equipment considering a set of standardized handgun and rifle projectiles not specific for military uses. The calculation of standoff distances is based on specific models for projectile perforation and flight. The range of standoff distances varies depending on the type of firearm used. Standoff distances resulted in the range of less than 10 meters in case of handgun projectiles and up to 1130 meters in case of hard-core rifle projectiles. Important differences in standoff distances were found for atmospheric and pressurized tanks. The effect of the initial offset angle of the shooter on the standoff distance was assessed by a Monte Carlo analysis based on credible offset angles for handgun and rifle projectiles. A case study demonstrates the importance of the results to improve chemical site security with respect to attack detection, emergency response, and mitigation actions aimed at preventing escalation scenarios
Vulnerability to Perforation from Shooting Attacks of Tanks Storing Hazardous Materials
Get PDFDue to the large quantities of hazardous materials stored and processed, chemical and process plants may be attractive targets for security attacks (e.g. terrorist attacks) that can severely impact workers, the population, the surrounding environment, and property. According to well established Security Vulnerability Assessment (SVA) and Security Risk Assessment (SRA) methodologies, the shooting threat to a chemical and process facility shall be investigated; however, the development of adequate damage models in case of shooting attacks using small/light weapons to industrial equipment units is still lacking. In the present study, an extended set of perforation models was retrieved from the literature and was validated against experimental data from perforation tests. The most reliable perforation models for soft core projectiles were selected and used to assess the vulnerability to perforation of atmospheric tanks storing hazardous materials for two reference projectiles enabling the identification of inherent safety threshold values for perforation thickness
Projectile perforation models for the vulnerability assessment of atmospheric storage tanks
No full textChemical and process plants storing large quantities of hazardous materials (flammable and/or toxic) may be attractive targets of intentional malicious attacks threatening the life and health of workers and po-pulation, as well as the environment and the availability of critical infrastructures. Quantification of the vulnerability of industrial facilities against shooting attacks received scarce attention in the context of Security Vulnerability Assessment (SVA) or Security Risk Assessment (SRA) methodologies. Specific damage models for projectile impact on equipment items storing relevant quantities of hazardous materials are not available in the literature. The current study aims at filling this gap by reviewing a wide set of empirical and analytical perforation models and validating them against experimental data from ballistic experimental tests. According to specific statistical parameters, the most suitable perforation models were selected in order to be used in the definition of quantitative methods for the analysis of the shooting attacks to at-mospheric storage equipment. The application of the selected models to the assessment of the vulnerability to perforation of steel atmospheric storage tanks showed important differences between handguns and rifles as regards the thickness that can be successfully perforated. The results allowed for the definition of inherent safety thresholds for the perforation thickness that can be used in the context of vulnerability assessment of critical assets within SVA/SRA.(c) 2022 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
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Fantastic Architecture and the Building of Europe in Valerio Evangelisti's Eymerich Fiction
No full textConcomitant with the horizontal expansion of EU territory through physical and political enlargement is a genealogy narrative, which emphasizes the ostensible roots of Europeanness in classical antiquity and Christianity. In the face of this sanitized genealogy, which lies at the heart of the European constitutional project, a range of alternative and more inclusive narratives circulate in contemporary European popular fiction. This paper focuses on a series of fantasy novels by the Italian author Valerio Evangelisti, featuring Inquisitor Eymerich as hero-investigator. In his highly popular novels, Evangelisti seeks to uncover layers of shared historical memory untainted with post-Enlightenment rhetoric.
The central architectural tropes of Evangelisti’s imaginary world are those of a castle and a convent, epitomizing the temporal and sacral power in European history. Each isolated from its outside environment and built on layer upon layer of subterranean chambers and corridors, the castle and the convent conceal a past quite different from the one championed in the official European genealogy. Memories of pagan worship and Islamic or Judaic learning – banished from the official rhetoric – continue to thrive, dark and threatening, in the subterranean strata of Evangelisti’s European edifice. Evangelisti thus provides an incisive critique of the official European story of origin, which threatens to suppress any alternative visions of European history or unorthodox avenues for European identity formation
Hermann Kant. Ein bio- bibliografisches Profil
No full textThe proximity to the power apparatus has cast dark shadows on the literary work of Hermann Kant, who is regarded as one of the most read authors of the GDR. Valerio Furneri embeds Kant's life and work in the all-German context of the 20th century and reinterprets his classics such as Die Aula or Der Aufenthalt. The author does not pursue the claim to rehabilitate the GDR, nor to trivialise Kant's role in it. Instead, the attempt is made to look at Kant's entire work from a temporal distance and to re-evaluate it. Through his works, Kant was able to accompany and depict not only the German-German history, but also European history.Die Nähe zum Machtapparat hat dunkle Schatten auf das literarische Werk von Hermann Kant, der als meistgelesener Schriftsteller der DDR gilt, geworfen. Valerio Furneri bettet Kants Leben und Werk in den gesamtdeutschen Kontext des 20. Jahrhunderts ein und interpretiert vor diesem Hintergrund Klassiker wie Die Aula oder Der Aufenthalt neu. Der Autor verfolgt dabei weder den Anspruch, die DDR zu rehabilitieren, noch Kants Rolle darin kleinzureden. Stattdessen wird der Versuch unternommen, Kants Gesamtwerk aus zeitlicher Distanz zu betrachten und neu zu bewerten. Durch seine Werke gelang es Kant nämlich nicht nur die deutsch-deutsche, sondern auch die europäische Geschichte zu begleiten und abzubilden
Hermann Kant. Ein bio- bibliografisches Profil
No full textThe proximity to the power apparatus has cast dark shadows on the literary work of Hermann Kant, who is regarded as one of the most read authors of the GDR. Valerio Furneri embeds Kant's life and work in the all-German context of the 20th century and reinterprets his classics such as Die Aula or Der Aufenthalt. The author does not pursue the claim to rehabilitate the GDR, nor to trivialise Kant's role in it. Instead, the attempt is made to look at Kant's entire work from a temporal distance and to re-evaluate it. Through his works, Kant was able to accompany and depict not only the German-German history, but also European history.Die Nähe zum Machtapparat hat dunkle Schatten auf das literarische Werk von Hermann Kant, der als meistgelesener Schriftsteller der DDR gilt, geworfen. Valerio Furneri bettet Kants Leben und Werk in den gesamtdeutschen Kontext des 20. Jahrhunderts ein und interpretiert vor diesem Hintergrund Klassiker wie Die Aula oder Der Aufenthalt neu. Der Autor verfolgt dabei weder den Anspruch, die DDR zu rehabilitieren, noch Kants Rolle darin kleinzureden. Stattdessen wird der Versuch unternommen, Kants Gesamtwerk aus zeitlicher Distanz zu betrachten und neu zu bewerten. Durch seine Werke gelang es Kant nämlich nicht nur die deutsch-deutsche, sondern auch die europäische Geschichte zu begleiten und abzubilden
Multi-risk Approach to the Qra of Natech Scenarios in the Chemical and Process Industry
Get PDFA novel quantitative methodology to perform a multi-risk assessment of technological scenarios triggered by natural hazards (Natech events) is presented. The framework is based on a multi-hazard approach and is proposed to assess the risk associated to the different natural events to which an industrial site where relevant quantities of hazardous substances are present is exposed to. The quantitative methodology allows the calculation of failure frequencies, consequences of the scenarios and risk indexes which are compared and benchmarked. Finally, a case study is defined taking into account the impact of earthquakes, floods and lightning strikes. The application leads to the quantification of the contribution of each reference natural event considered to the overall risk figures. Moreover, the methodology proposed enables the evaluation of the relative weight of the risk related to each natural hazard for the selected facility
Special issue: Process safety in times of a pandemic
No full textGreen 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.Safety and Security Scienc
The intentionality of matter: the personal character of nature in Edith Stein's "Potency and act"
No full textIn the closing chapter, Francesco Valerio Tommasi elaborates upon the analogy between person and nature in Stein. As he emphasizes, Stein attributes to nature an objectively spiritual dimension, a hidden form of intentionality. As the author suggests, for Stein nature turns out to be a living sign of the spirit—thus, a sign expressing spiritual values, such as emotions. This perspective is present in both the lectures on The Constitution of the Human Person and Potency and Act: the phenomenological reflection on personhood is combined, Tommasi argues, with a Thomist view that brings Stein to conceiving the life of the entire cosmos as a spirit (or act) informing it and shaping it into a living sign of the creation
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