Section 6

Quantitative Risk
Assessment
Process Control & Safety Group
Institute of Hydrogen Economy
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Dr. Arshad Ahmad

Email: arshad@[Link]

[Link]    
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Safety & loss Prevention 1
 6.1
Overview of QRA

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 What is QRA
• Systematic methodology to assess risks
associated any installation
– Taking into consideration all forms of hazards
– Uses design information and historical data to
estimate frequency of failure
– Uses modelling software to assess consequence
• Where/when is QRA needed
– CIMAH 1996 – part of CIMAH safety report
– EQA 1985 – a section under EIA

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 Definition

Risk = Severity x Likelihood

•  Extent  of  Damage   •  Likelihood  of  event  
•  Fatality     •  Based  of  failure  frequency  of  
•  Injuries   process  components  
•  Losses    

•  Analysis  based  on  design  and   •  Analysis  based  on  

modeling  equa;ons   manufacturer’s  and  historical  
data  
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 Methodology
Hazard  Iden;fica;on  

Consequence  
Frequency  Analysis   Analysis  

Risk  Es;ma;on  and  

Evalua;on  

Risk  Management    
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 Hazard Identification

• Purpose: to identify plausible hazard

conditions
• Methods
– Check-list, Preliminary Hazard Review, HAZID,
HAZOP etc.
– Unstructured brainstorming?

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 Frequency Analysis

• Sometimes referred to as Hazard Analysis

• Purpose: To estimate the likelihood for a
hazard scenario to occur
• Methods
– Event-Tree Analysis
– Fault-Tree Analysis

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 Consequence Analysis
• Purpose: To assess the extent of damage
• Typical Hazard
• Toxic Release, Fire and Explosion
• Modeling of hazard scenario
– Toxic Release: Source (Release) Model, Dispersion
– Fire and explosion: Source Model, Fire and
Explosion, Heat Dispersion
– Fatality Assessment: Probit Analysis
– Nonfatal Consequence: Skin-burn, Property
damage

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 Risk Estimation and Evaluation
• Purpose: To assess Risk and Make Safety
Judgment
• Methods
– Individual Risk: IRPA, LSIR
– Societal Risk
• Tolerability Criteria

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 Risk Management
• Propose: to propose mitigating measure to
reduce the potential impact of the hazard and
possibly reduce the risk level
• Method
– Safe Work Procedure at every project stages
– Emergency Response Management
– Emergency Response Procedure

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6.2 Risk Estimation

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 Two distinct categories of Risies
• Voluntary Risks
• e.g. driving or riding in an automobile, and
working in an industrial facility.

• Involuntary Risks
• e.g. exposure to lighting, disease, typhoons
and persons in residential or recreational
areas near the industrial facilities.

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Examples of risks associated with
activities
Voluntary Involuntary
Risk fatalities Risk fatalities
(death) per (death) per
Activity person per yr Activity person per yr
(x106) (x106)
Smoking (20 5000 Influenza 200
cigarettes/day) Leukemia 80
Motor cycling 2000 Run over by road 60
Car racing 1200 vehicle (UK)
Car driving 170 Run over by road 50
Rock climbing 40 vehicle (USA)
Football 20 Floods (USA) 2.2
Storms (USA) 0.8
Lightning (USA) 0.1
Falling aircraft 0.1
(USA)
Falling aircraft 0.02
(UK)

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 Individual Risk
• Individual risk is defined formally (by Institution of
Chemical Engineering, UK) as the frequency at
which an individual may be expected to sustain a
given level of harm from the realization of specified
hazards. It is usually taken to be the risk of death,
and usually expressed as a risk per year.
• The term ‘individual’ may be a member of a certain
group of workers on a facility, or a member of the
public, or anything as defined by the QRA.

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 Location Specific Individual Risk

IRx ,y ,i = pi fi
• IRx,y,i is the individual risk at location (x,y) due to event i,
• pi is the probability of fatality due to incident i at location (x,y).
This is normally determined by FTA
• fi is the frequency of incident outcome case i, (per year). This
value can be determined using Probit Analysis

When there are more than one release events, the

cumulative risk at location (x,y) is given by equation

n
IRx ,y = ∑ IRx ,y ,i
i =1

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 Average Individual Risk /
Individual Risk Per Annum

• The average individual risk is the average of all individual risk

estimates over a defined or exposed population. This is useful
for example in estimating the average risk of workers in
reference with existing population. Average individual risk
over exposed population is given by CCPS (1989) as

∑ IRx y Px y , ,
x y,
IRAV =
∑ Px y ,
x y
,

Here, IRAV is the average individual risk in the exposed

population (probability of fatality per year) and P x, y is the
number of people at location x, y

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Example: LSIR for Proposed
Chemical Plant

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 Societal Risk

• Societal risk measures the risk to a group of people.

It is an estimation of risk in term of both the
potential size and likelihood of incidents with
multiple consequences.
• The risk can be represented by Frequency-Number
(F-N) Curve.

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 Determination of Societal Risk
• To calculate the number of fatalities resulting from
each incident outcome case, the following equation
is used:
Ni = ∑ Px ,y pf ,i
x ,y

Here, Ni is number of fatalities resulting from

Incident Outcome case i, pf,i is the probability of
fatality and Px,y is the number of population.
• The cumulative frequency is then calculated using
the following equation:
FN = ∑ Fi
i
Here, FN is the frequency of all incident outcome cases affecting
N or more people, per year and Fi= is the frequency of incident
i per–year.
outcome caseMKH1223 Process Safety & loss Prevention
 Example: The corresponding Societal
Risk
1x10-3
Frequency (F) one or more Fatalities (per year)

Intolerable
Region
1x10-4

1x10-5
ALARP
Region

1x10-6
Broadly Acceptable
Region

1x10-7
1 10 100 1000 10000
Fatalities (N)

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6.3 Tolerability Criteria

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 Tolerable Risk
• Risk cannot be eliminated entirely.
• Every chemical process has a certain amount of risk
associated with it.
• At some point in the design stage someone needs to
decide if the risks are “tolerable".
• One tolerability criteria in the UK is "as low as
reasonable practicable" (ALARP) concept formalized
in 1974 by United Kingdom Health and Safety at
Work Act.
• Serious consideration must be made to decide on
tolerability based on ALARP
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 ALARP Criteria
INTOLERABLE LEVEL
(Risk cannot be justified
on any ground)

TOLERABLE only if risk

reduction is impracticable or
if its cost is grossly
THE ALARP REGION disproportionate to the
(Risk is undertaken if benefited improvement gained
is desired)
TOLERABLE if cost of
reduction would exceed the
improvement gained

BROADLY
ACCEPTABLE
REGION

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 Tolerability Criteria in Malaysia
• LSIR is used as a measure of individual risk
– This means that the risk is not influenced by
population
• The Upper limits for LSIR are as follows
– For residential receptors : 1 X 10-6 fatality per
year
– For industrial receptors : 1 X 10-5 fatality per year
– For workers on site: Voluntary risk (1 X 10-3
fatality per year). This is considered maximum in
UK for offshore industry.

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 Tolerability Criteria (UK)
• This framework is represented as a three-tier system as
shown in figure. It consists of several elements :
(1) Upper-bound on individual (and possibly, societal) risk
levels, beyond which risks unacceptable. In UK, the
guideline and criteria are spelled out in R2P2 (reducing
Risk Protecting People) document. (refer to www.
[Link])
(2) Lower-bound on individual (and possibly, societal) risk
levels, below which risks are deemed not to warrant
regulatory concern.
(3) intermediate region between (1) and (2) above, where
further individual and societal risk reductions are required
to achieve a level deemed "as low as reasonably
practicable (ALARP)".
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Tolerability Criteria (UK)

Dotted line –
general public

Solid line -
workers

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Tolerability criteria (Netherland)

1. Risk to public cannot be

more than 1X 10-6 fpy
2. Fatality cannot be more
than 10 at risk 1X 10-5 fpy
3. Slope -2

General public only

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Tolerability Criteria (Australia)

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 Tolerability Criteria (Canada)

Major industrial accident council of Canada (MIACC)

recommends the above Individual risks level

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END OF SECTION 6

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