Citation

Zhang L, Landucci G, Reniers G, Khakzad N, Zhou J. Risk Anal. 2018; 38(8): 1585-1600.

Affiliation

Department of Industrial Engineering, School of Electromechanical Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, China.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Society for Risk Analysis, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/risa.12955

PMID

29266430

Abstract

Historical data analysis shows that escalation accidents, so-called domino effects, have an important role in disastrous accidents in the chemical and process industries. In this study, an agent-based modeling and simulation approach is proposed to study the propagation of domino effects in the chemical and process industries. Different from the analytical or Monte Carlo simulation approaches, which normally study the domino effect at probabilistic network levels, the agent-based modeling technique explains the domino effects from a bottom-up perspective. In this approach, the installations involved in a domino effect are modeled as agents whereas the interactions among the installations (e.g., by means of heat radiation) are modeled via the basic rules of the agents. Application of the developed model to several case studies demonstrates the ability of the model not only in modeling higher-level domino effects and synergistic effects but also in accounting for temporal dependencies. The model can readily be applied to large-scale complicated cases.

© 2017 Society for Risk Analysis.

Language: en

Keywords

Agent-based modeling; computational experiments; domino effect; major accident hazard