Citation

Shi L, Shuai J, Xu K. J. Hazard. Mater. 2014; 278C: 529-538.

Affiliation

College of Mechanical and Transportation Engineering, China University of Petroleum (Beijing Campus), Beijing 102249, PR China.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jhazmat.2014.06.034

PMID

25010458

Abstract

Fire and explosion accidents of steel oil storage tanks (FEASOST) occur occasionally during the petroleum and chemical industry production and storage processes and often have devastating impact on lives, the environment and property. To contribute towards the development of a quantitative approach for assessing the occurrence probability of FEASOST, a fault tree of FEASOST is constructed that identifies various potential causes. Traditional fault tree analysis (FTA) can achieve quantitative evaluation if the failure data of all of the basic events (BEs) are available, which is almost impossible due to the lack of detailed data, as well as other uncertainties. This paper makes an attempt to perform FTA of FEASOST by a hybrid application between an expert elicitation based improved analysis hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy set theory, and the occurrence possibility of FEASOST is estimated for an oil depot in China. A comparison between statistical data and calculated data using fuzzy fault tree analysis (FFTA) based on traditional and improved AHP is also made. Sensitivity and importance analysis has been performed to identify the most crucial BEs leading to FEASOST that will provide insights into how managers should focus effective mitigation.

Language: en