NAERINGSPH-Nærings-phd

This Ph.D. thesis explore risk management methods that the industry can use to analyze potentially hazardous activities. The overall goal of the research presented in this thesis is to improve existing methods and develop new strategies using system engineering concepts and methodology for better risk management. Risk management is all activities used to manage the risk of hazardous events and provides information to improve decision-making. A traditional approach for ensuring the system's safety is to identify and eliminate the causes of an accident once it happens and to repeat such activities if a new accident occurs. A traditional approach is principally reactive. With the advancement of industrial systems, e.g., integrated control and safety systems, complex operation and shutdown sequences have evolved challenges in managing risk and safety. Considering the changing nature of today's design and recent accidents, it has become vital to improve existing approaches to capture the complexity and dynamic nature of the automated system. Research focuses on four main directions of risk management. Hazard identification, inherent safety evaluation, safety barriers, and performance indicators. Design improvement of the system is crucial for any facility. Comprehensive hazard identification advises on corrective action on management and organizational issues. The related methods can be utilized in the conceptual, preliminary, and detailed design stages. Process safety during the design phase allows for eliminating, substituting, or engineering out of hazards up-front rather than changing after the installation or after it is completed. With limited time and other resources, one can recognize and mitigate potential safety hazards early in a process life cycle. During the research, an inherent safety evaluation method is developed. The procedure is applied for a process system that validates the method's applicability. The approach finds a scientific basis for previously established parameter-based inherent safety evaluation methods. The foremost step of the technique, which is finding inherent safety characteristics and their related parameter, makes the method flexible and general to be applicable in all industry sectors. The feature of a perfect, inherently safer system and their corresponding numerical values are determined to find a logical scoring system. The deviation of a real system for those parameters is determined to determine the score of inherent safety subindices; thereby overall inherent system safety index is determined. The method removes the problems of existing approaches, like dimensionality problems, lacking the logical basis of parameter scoring. A system engineering approach is proposed to check the adequacy of safety barriers and safety assessment of the facility in the research. The approach adopts the FRAM (Functional Resonance Analysis Method) method to find the required safety barriers in the system. A two-level mathematical model is developed to predict the system's safety. The developed method is applied with a practical case study of the Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) ship-to-ship transfer system. Research also works on the development of safety performance indicators. It uses a system engineering method, System Theoretic Process accident, and Model (STAMP) to develop indicators. Indicators were also developed using previously established methods like OECD (Environment, Health and Safety Program) and CCPS (Center for chemical process safety). All the methods were applied for a case study of the LNG Floating Storage and Regasification Unit; based on the evaluation, a comparative analysis was created. Implementing effective safety management will help to ensure that the organization's safety efforts target the areas where safety benefits will be most significant and, therefore, more effective. The contributions of the research apply to several sectors and industry branches. Through the application of the methods, it has been possible to validate the developed methods and concepts. The research contributes to better decision support and improved risk management. The developed and analyzed methods focus on non-probabilistic methods. It emphasizes a non-probabilistic framework that does not depend on historical data. Assigning probabilistic information to an automated system is challenging and error-prone with excessive assumptions. However, the research points out the need for more real case studies. Future research should focus on applying the developed methods more straightforwardly to encourage users to use them. In addition, improved risk management methods should consider dynamic control of the automated system, which should also be focused on in future works.

The research focuses on improving risk management methodologies for automated systems and their applications in the petroleum and process industries. The overall scientific objective of this research was to develop theories and methods for risk management of the modern automated plant. The goal was divided into four research sub-objectives related to hazard identification, inherently safer design, safety barriers allocation, and safety performance indicators. Sub objectives were achieved through six scientific papers. Four papers are published in peer-reviewed journals. The intermediate results of the research are presented at European Safety and Reliability (ESREL) and Probabilistic Safety Assessment and Management (PSAM) conferences. The conferences provided meaningful feedback for further research and insights into the research trends in the field. Overall, the research focused improvement of risk management methods using a SE perspective. The current study emphasizes the development of simple, user-friendly approaches. This research contributes to applied research aimed at offshore and chemical process units with significant accident potential. Five contributions have been made, focusing on two industrial sectors, and the developed methods have been tested for the various industry challenges. The case study conducted during research presents the practical application of various improved methods. A part of the research assesses process safety barrier allocation and risk assessment for the LNG ship-to-ship transfer process. Establishing an improved safety barrier strategy can help the industry improve its risk management. Research also discusses the hazard identification of process leaks, an essential step in risk management for LNG floating storage and regasification units. Hazard identification is discussed in detail with HAZOP and STPA procedures. The research can benefit any industry personnel who want detailed hazard identification for process industry applications and the LNG industry. A system perspective allows a systematic and structured analysis, providing overall guidance. The entire work has investigated applying the SE process and theories in risk management. The system approach promotes and improves communication and supports the decision-making process among the different stakeholders.

Process safety management is all activities used to manage the risk of hazardous events and provides information to improve decision-making. A traditional approach for ensuring the system's safety is to identify and eliminate the causes of an accident once it happens and to repeat such activities if a new accident occurs. With the advancement of industrial systems, e.g., integrated control and safety systems, complex operation and shutdown sequences have evolved challenges in managing risk and safety. Considering the changing nature of today's design and recent accidents, it has become vital to improve existing approaches to capture the complexity and dynamic nature of the automated system. The overall goal of the present research is to improve existing methods and develop new strategies using system engineering concepts and methodology for better risk management. Design improvement of the system is focused on in the research. Detailed hazard identification and inherent safety assessment are focused on as they are crucial for design improvement. Safety assurance in the operational phase is achieved by monitoring safety performances. A system-based performance indicator system needs to be explored for monitoring safety. Based on the monitoring, safety training, education, regulatory compliance, inspection, or maintenance can be advanced, and plans can be set accordingly. The research focuses on the industry's challenges in process safety management in various phases. The main aim is divided into several sub-objectives. The first sub-objective plans to consider hazard identification as it is the core of risk assessment in oil and gas activities. The question arises from whether present existing methods can identify hazards of the modern complex systems. A system-based detailed hazard identification method is considered to explore whether a system-based perspective can improve the current approaches. Issues with the usage of inherent safety in the industry are considered to research as the second sub-objective. The sub-objective intends to focus on finding practical challenges on adopting inherent safety indices by the industry and industry personnel. It also intends to focus on developing inherent safety evaluation methods for the system. The work focuses on finding the limitation of the previously established method and developing an improved method that can remove the earlier limitations. The overall goal is to develop a flexible method to be applied in a wide range of industry sections in various phases of the system. Subobjevie three intends to develop a control requirement-based analysis to identify the required barriers of the system. A goal is to develop an improved SIL (safety integrity level) determination method that is flexible and easily adaptable for the industry. Subobjevie four focuses on the safety performance indicator development programs from a system engineering perspective. The aim is to compare the earlier established methods and system engineering-based methods. The research aims to contribute to several sectors and industry branches for improved process safety management and better decision support. It emphasizes a non-probabilistic framework that does not depend on historical data. Assigning probabilistic information for an automated system is a challenging and error-prone task with excessive assumptions. By applying the methods, it will be possible to validate the developed methods and concepts. Finally, it will focus on developing user-friendly and straightforward methods and more straightforward applications of the developed methods to encourage industry personnel to apply them.