A method for assessing propagation paths and probabilities of domino effects triggered by natech events

Abstract

Earthquakes, floods and other natural disasters can lead to serious fires, explosions and other technical disasters, called Natech events, possibly triggering domino effects in chemical industrial parks. However, current studies only look at Natech events or domino effects separately, and don't consider domino effects triggered by Natech events with multiple primary accidents and with higher order accidents. This paper presents a method aiming to obtain all possible paths and probabilities of domino effects triggered by Natech events. Firstly, our suggested method is obtained by integrating conventional assessment frameworks for Natech events and domino effects. Secondly, the method is solved by a Matlab program based on (i) the scenario matrix, (ii) the scenario escalation matrix, and (iii) the path cell array. Finally, the method is illustrated and its availability is verified by a real chemical tank farm which suffered from a flood. The results show that this method can obtain and rank all the possible paths and their probabilities. Furthermore, the cumulative probabilities of each higher order level of domino effect and each tank can be obtained for a subsequent quantitative risk assessment considering both Natech events and their resulting domino effects.