As monetization of risk becomes more mainstream, values must be assigned to the potential for human injury or fatality. The risk assessor need not generate values himself since such numbers are published in various sources. This includes values that have been used in US government decision-making for years. Here is some example guidance: VSL Guidance 2013 […]
Topic: Modeling
Can you explain more about Geohazards and Weather-Related Outside Forces?
Geohazards and Weather-Related Outside Force The threat category ‘Outside Force’ in a risk assessment typically includes forces such as ground/earth movement, flooding, cold weather, and lightning. When buried pipelines cross sloping terrain, there is a danger that soil movement (down the slope) will impose an excessive load on the pipe that could lead to failure. […]
Optimizing the use of Inspection Results
A limitation that continues to plague older risk assessment methodologies is the inability to fully include the results of inspections. None dispute the value of inspection and its critical role in failure avoidance. Yet, neither the classical statistics-centric QRA nor the common relative risk ranking methodologies, can capture inspection activity in a meaningful way. A […]
Risk Profiling
Pipeline Risk Assessment—Risk Profiling In earlier installments of this column, we introduced the concept of pipeline risk assessment Essential Elements (EE’s). That guideline is a list of ingredients that must be included in any pipeline risk assessment before that assessment can be considered complete. Following these guidelines helps to ensure a technically sound risk assessment […]
Decision Trees and Risk Assessment
An interesting contribution from Joel Anderson Pipeline Risk algorithms can take in hundreds of variables and perform hundreds more calculations to determine the probability of failure for a given segment of pipe. Trying to determine what threats are biggest contributor to a system’s risk or even over the length of a given line can be […]
How do we Assess for Geohazards?
Many miles of pipeline around the world are subject to damage from geohazards. As used here, ‘geohazard’ refers to any earth movements sufficient to damage a pipeline, and can also include weather- and water-related events that are potentially damaging. So, we often group, under the heading ‘geohazard’, a wide range of phenomena such as: landslide […]
Words Matter
Risk Concepts sometimes harbor challenges in understanding and communications. This means that we must employ extra care in our choice of language when discussing risk issues. Read the article (pdf file)
Updating guidance documents for pipeline threat identification and risk assessment
Unfortunately, the US guidance documents for pipeline risk assessment are still not up to date. This continues to be a source of confusion for some and frustration for others. Please click this link to read the pdf file of this article.
Facilities / tanks / pumps / compressors / appurtenances / etc, General, Modeling, Risk Assessment, Risk Assessment Methodologies
Pipeline Risk Assessment
Risk assessment on any facility is most efficiently done by first dividing the facility into components with unchanging risk characteristics. For a cross-country pipeline, this involves collecting data on all portions of the pipeline and its surroundings and then using this data to ‘dynamically segment’ the pipeline into segments of varying length. Risk algorithms are […]
ILI vs DA—The Risk View
A rather common issue these days is decision making involving comparisons between In Line Inspection (ILI) vs Direct Assessment (DA, and, in particular, External Corrosion DA or ECDA). You may need to research these techniques, if not already familiar to you, since we will assume the reader is fairly familiar with both. Both are acceptable […]