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Bow ties and Offshore Safety Studies
Pillai Sreejith
Bow Ties and Offshore Safety Case
i) Introduction:
Bow Tie Assessment (BTA) technique, initiated by Shell is widely used to demonstrate MajorHazard Management (MHM) efforts of offshore operators. Moreover, bow tie is a simple graphicrepresentation and is understood by a wide range of audience, not only by HSE managers.HEMP (Hazards & Effects Management Process) by operating companies is a UK Safety CaseRegulation 2005 requirement and obviously BTA is an effective tool to demonstrate HEMP.Typically, the left side of the bow contains control / preventative barriers and the right sidecontains mitigation / recovery measures. It is the Shell practice to identify escalation controls foreach of the barriers and recovery measures. HSE / Safety Critical Elements (SCE) are part ofbarriers / recovery measure whereas HSE / Safety Critical Activities are part of the escalationcontrols.In this note, the possibilities of using bow ties in safety case assessments are explained.
ii) Safety Case Application of Bow Tie Assessment (BTA):
If bow ties are constructed for each of the MAEs (Major Accident Events) or MAH (Major AccidentHazards) based on the HAZID (Hazard Identification), these bow ties can be modified for each ofthe FSA (Formal Safety Assessment) studies to demonstrate that the assessments are incompliance in UK SCR (Safety Case Regulations), 2005. BTA can be used in all offshore FSAstudies and the possibilities and approach are explained in the table below:
FSA Study Bow Tie Application
HAZID Once the MAEs are identified, develop bow ties with all safetysystems /barriers and the recommended barriers for each ofthe MAE.ESSA
(Emergency System Survivability Assessment)
The mitigation safety systems on the right side of bow tie(emergency systems) will have to be assessed for survivabilityduring their designed performance objective.ETRERA
(Escape, Temporary Refuge,Evacuation and Rescue Analysis)
Specific bow ties may be developed for escape, evacuation,refuge and rescue emergency situations to demonstrate thatall SOLAS (Safety of Life At Sea) required are in place based
Safety Case BowSafety Case BowSafety Case BowSafety Case Bow
TiesTiesTiesTies
Bow ties and Offshore Safety Studies
Pillai Sreejith
on potential impairment conditions.FEA
(Fire and Explosion Assessment)
Specific bow ties for fire, explosion, and gas release may bedeveloped to demonstrate that all these MAEs are controlledand mitigated using adequate barriers based on potentialimpairment conditions.NHHA
(Non-Hydrocarbon Hazard Assessment)
Specific bow ties for dropped objects, ship collision andtransportation risks may be developed to demonstrate that allthese MAEs are controlled and mitigated using adequatebarriers based on potential impairment conditions.QRA
(Quantitative Risk Assessment)
The impairment frequencies of MAEs can be calculated withinputs from FEA & NHHA studies by using Fault Trees (FTA)on the left side of bow and Event Tree (ET) on the right side ofthe bow. One bow tie per each of the MAE could bedeveloped as part of QRA to demonstrate that all threats andbarriers are considered while calculating impairmentfrequencies.ALARP Demonstration For a brown field QRA, the risk levels should be calculatedbased on actual SCE/safety barrier performance. Traffic lightsystem could be used to represent performance of safetybarriers in the bow tie diagram. If all the barriers areperforming as designed / desired (Green), then the installationis regarded as ‘Safe to Operate’ and ALARP.Verification Scheme The Written Scheme of Examination (WSE) as part of SCE(Safety Critical Element) verification could be demonstrated bydeveloping bow ties with specific inputs from PerformanceStandards (PS).HSE Safety Case In the FSA summary section, the bow ties developed in allassessments could be included. Finally, based on safetyassessments, consolidated bow ties could be developed for allMAEs in line with potential impairment of defined sensitivereceivers.
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